


So Tonight That I Might See

by zoicite



Category: Jesus Christ Superstar - Webber/Rice
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 22:22:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoicite/pseuds/zoicite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There had never been anyone else.  No one else that could make Judas feel this.  Mary, yes, but it was different.  Mary infuriated him and she delighted him.  She surprised him and soothed him.  But Jesus - Jesus paralyzed him.</p>
<p>Based on the characterizations depicted in the 2012 Broadway Revival of Jesus Christ Superstar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Tonight That I Might See

**Author's Note:**

> Set approximately 6 months prior to the events of the musical. Loosely utilizes events from John 7:1. Very little else has any resemblance to anything in the Bible whatsoever. If any of this is likely to offend you, please don't read it.

Jesus was quiet ahead of him as they moved through the streets of Tiberias. There were more soldiers here than there were the last time they passed through. It wasn’t hard to guess why. The Pharisees hadn’t lied. People were talking. Herod was growing weary of them and people were getting scared. 

Jesus turned back to make sure that Judas was still with him. 

“I’m here,” Judas said, his voice barely above a whisper. 

When this started, they moved out in the open. They laughed and inspired those who stopped to listen. The sun shone on their faces in the town squares, before the Temple in Jerusalem. They didn’t rush quietly through alleys and back streets. They weren’t forced to meet in secret, to secure lodgings away from the crowds.

Everything was changing. It was happening so quickly, quicker than even Jesus could have imagined. 

Jesus stopped abruptly in front of him and Judas, lost in thought, stepped into him from behind. Jesus turned and pressed Judas back against the wall, stilling Judas as he listened. Judas's heart jumped. He tried to listen as well, but it was hard to hear anything over the pounding in his own chest. 

That afternoon the group of Pharisees had approached Judas first. They’d warned of a plot, of Herod’s plans to kill Jesus. Judas had rushed to Jesus immediately, had pulled him over to listen to the men’s words. 

“We should leave Galilee,” Judas pressed. “Regroup in Capernaum, head east into Gaulanitis and let Herod cool.”

Jesus' words in front of the Pharisees had been sure, dismissive and pompous, and even when he was alone with Judas, Jesus refused to retreat. Judas begged him and Jesus took Judas's face in this hands, smiled when Judas kissed his cheek, but would not back down.

“What did you mean?” Judas asked, the question that had been nagging at him since the exchange in the square. “What did you mean when you told them that no prophet should die away from Jerusalem?”

“Only that it won‘t happen here,” Jesus replied, taking Judas's hand between his. “Not now.”

Judas shook his head, but Jesus was stubborn. “Three more days,” he insisted. “Not until then will we move on.”

Now though, the city shrouded in darkness, Jesus was tense beside him. He was scared, Judas thought, his breath was just as ragged as Judas's here, hidden between these crumbling walls. Jesus pressed close against him, as though he could make them both disappear, melt into the stones of the wall. Judas reached up, his fingers twisting for just a moment in the cloth at Jesus' shoulder before falling away.

Finally, Judas felt Jesus relax. He sighed beside Judas and his body seemed to deflate with it, his back curling in, bringing them even closer in the dark. Jesus turned toward Judas, so close that the tip of his nose brushed Judas's forehead. 

“There is no one,” Jesus confirmed, and before Judas could reach for him, Jesus stepped away, proceeded down the alley. Judas hung back for a moment. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. It was nothing. There was no one there. 

When Judas opened his eyes, Jesus was farther away, waiting for him, and Judas pushed himself away from the wall and rushed to catch up.

**

She was watching him again. Mary, out of bed, her illness dispelled, watched them all. Judas could feel her eyes, large and dark, as they followed him through the crowded room. The merchant had opened his doors to them and there were many here, more than the twelve, more than the twenty there had been the previous night. 

“We’ve grown,” Judas noted when Peter came to stand beside him, a smile playing at his lips. Judas tried to smile in return, but he knew it looked strained. “Do you think it wise?” 

“They followed us,” Peter said. “We can’t turn them away now.”

“We need to be more careful,” Judas said. Jesus had been careful. Judas had been saying it for months, perhaps a year now if he looked back. He’d been saying it since Jesus was expelled from Nazareth the second time. He had to be more careful. Their position was delicate. Rome was quick to anger, quick to react with force.

Beside him, Peter shrugged. Peter had been spending his days on the southern end of the city. He hadn’t heard the warning of the Pharisees, the murmurs through the crowd. He hadn’t felt Jesus tremble beside him in the night. Judas pulled Peter aside. He told Peter of the warning in a rush of hushed whispers, relayed to him Jesus' response.

“We’re safe here,” Peter reassured Judas, his hand firm on Judas's arm. He was still smiling, as though he was merely amusing Judas, wasn’t listening at all. “We’re safe here for now.”

“Maybe,” Judas agreed. He watched, distracted for a moment as Mary slipped out of the merchant’s home. Jesus had retreated by the same path moments before.

Beside him Peter chuckled.

“What is it?” Judas asked, turning his attention back to Peter.

“She upsets you,“ he said, nodded toward the now empty doorway. 

“No,” Judas said. 

Peter shrugged. “Everything upsets you. Jesus enjoys her company.”

“She - “

“You shouldn’t listen to Thomas,” Peter pointed out.

There was talk. Mary’s sister had implied to Thomas that Mary’s profession in Magdala had been less than virtuous. A prostitute, a whore. It may be gossip, nothing more. It may be rivalry or jealousy, but it felt like the truth. It didn’t matter, Judas knew. Not here. Look at Matthew. Look at any of them. But still, it troubled Judas, the way that she watched him. Regardless of what she had done before, it was what she did now that unsettled him.

“It isn’t that,” Judas said. “It’s - she’s unsettling.”

“Everything unsettles you,” Peter repeated. He reached out, pulled Judas into a hug, his mouth close to Judas's ear when he continued. “I think she’s pretty too.”

**

It seemed that it was only yesterday that they were brought to Mary, lying feverish on a bed of blankets in her father’s home. Judas had sat beside her. He‘d wiped her brow. He hadn‘t expected that she would come with them when they moved on. Judas hadn’t expected that she would be going anywhere ever again, but Jesus had wanted to wait. He‘d watched the color fade from her cheeks. He set a hand on Judas's shoulder, his fingers firm. Judas wasn’t the one who needed the comfort. He reached up and covered Jesus‘ hand with his own.

“She isn’t going to wake,” Judas said. He’d rarely seen anyone so sick. Jesus squeezed his shoulder, turned his palm and took Judas's hand in his.

There was nothing to be done. There was nothing to do but wait, and so they did. Mary‘s father broke bread with them, Mary‘s sister poured their wine, and together they waited. Judas was surprised to find the next morning that some of the color had returned to Mary‘s cheeks. Two days later, she opened her eyes.

Jesus had smiled at Judas and Judas thought it beautiful. He turned to Mary and thought her beautiful as well. And then Jesus embraced her and from that day on Mary was joined with them, one of them.

It hadn’t been long ago at all. 

Now Judas watched as Mary cared for Jesus, as she stroked his cheek. He felt a twist in his gut and he knew it was jealousy, but he didn’t understand it. When Peter retreated from his side, Judas stepped toward the opening of a window. He looked out on them. Mary sat beside Jesus on a bench. They didn’t touch. They didn’t even look at one another. 

Mary spoke, though Judas couldn’t hear the words, and after a moment, Jesus laughed.

Judas watched as Mary smiled too, as she stared up at the stars. She was still beautiful, but she was different now as well. She wasn’t what Judas had expected her to be. She was harder, sure and direct, quiet. She wasn’t what Judas had expected at all. She turned then and Judas flinched and backed away, but it was too late. She saw him and she stood, left Jesus without a word and was by Judas's side in a moment. 

“I haven’t thanked you,” Mary said. “Thank you.”

Judas didn’t respond. He looked away from her, turned back toward Jesus, but it didn’t deter her. He knew that it wouldn’t.

“You dislike me,” Mary continued. “I can see that. Yet I know that you were there. I felt your hands and I heard your voice.”

“I don’t know you,” Judas countered. He did look at her now, had to. “How can I dislike you?”

“You don’t want to know me,” Mary agreed, her chin turned up toward him, her mouth a line.

**

Mary tended the fire. Judas watched as she pushed her skirts aside, crouched down beside the flames. The smell of the cooking fish was fragrant in the air. Mary directed the women who helped her as though this was her natural position in the order of things. No one looking at her would dare question that she was the head of these women, that she knew exactly what she was doing.

Judas felt a hand on his back and, startled, he turned to find Jesus standing beside him. Jesus smiled and sat down. Judas watched as Jesus removed his sandals and rubbed his feet, kneading them with the tips of his fingers. They’d walked the entire day and had covered a good distance. They were all a little sore, a little worn. 

“I thought you’d be relieved to leave Tiberias,” Jesus said, turning toward Judas. “But you don’t look relieved.”

“I am relieved,” Judas said. “That city closes in around you until you feel as though you can’t breathe.”

“We weren’t in danger there,” Jesus pointed out.

“You don’t know that,” Judas countered. “And I know that you were frightened. I was there beside you.”

Jesus nodded toward Simon, who leaned over a map some distance away. “You don’t want to help Simon plan the route? He finds it strange that you‘re sitting here alone, apart from the others.”

Ah, so that was why Jesus had approached. He’d expected that Judas, who had pushed to leave Tiberias, would continue to push now that they had left. But Jesus hadn’t listened to Judas then. Judas knew Jesus. He knew that Jesus would make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Sukkot, the Feast of the Tabernacles. Now though - 

“We’re going north,” Judas shrugged. “To Capernaum, I assume.” It was what he would have chosen.

“To Capernaum,” Jesus agreed. 

Judas nodded. “Not south to Jerusalem?”

Jesus frowned. “You wish to go to Jerusalem?”

“No,” Judas said. “But I thought -”

Jesus was smiling at him.

“What is it?”

“You listen so intently to my words, Judas, yet you always choose the wrong ones on which to dwell.”

“Which words are those?” Judas asked.

Jesus laughed and it felt like it had been a long time since Judas had heard it. He couldn’t help but smile in return.

“The good ones,” Jesus said. His hand fell hard on Judas's back as he rubbed circles against the fabric of Judas's cloak. Judas leaned back into it, chose not to press the issue. For now they were going to Capernaum. When they turned south again he would try to intervene.

Jesus nodded toward Mary, still crouched before the fire. Judas looked up and saw that Mary turned quickly away from them, caught. 

“She watches you,” Jesus noted.

“She’s watching you,” Judas countered with a shake of his head.

Jesus stopped the movement of his hand against Judas's back. He leaned against Judas's shoulder as he stood. He left his sandals in the grass beside Judas, but before he walked away, he turned back and smiled. “Perhaps she watches us both.”

**

The crowd in Capernaum grew quickly, coming to gather and listen to the words that Jesus spoke. He spoke of love and hope. He spoke in riddles and parables that were easily translated into lessons that the people could apply to their lives. Their faces told Judas that they were in love, in love with Jesus’ voice and the words that he said, in love with the way that his hands reached out to touch each and every one of them. They were falling in love with him the same way that the disciples had two years earlier, the same way that Judas had fallen. If Judas closed his eyes, if he just listened, he would gladly do it all over again. He would leave everything behind to follow this man, to stand at his side, to hear more of what he had to teach.

He felt someone close beside him, turned to find Mary standing there. He nodded in greeting, smiled at her.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you smile,” Mary said. “Capernaum suits you.”

“I suppose,” Judas agreed.

“Jesus suits you,” Mary added.

Her eyes were enormous, searching his face. He felt that she could pull the truth from anyone, wouldn’t even need to ask. She could change people with just a look. Judas felt that if he looked at her long enough, he would drown. She smiled at him, but her smile was cautious, unsure of how he’d react to her. He turned away.

“This is how it was,” Judas said. “This is how it was before Peter ever uttered the word Christ, before anyone whispered of a Messiah, and before Jesus himself started to wonder if it all might be true.”

Mary turned to look at Jesus and Judas thought she must see it. She must see that he seemed lighter here, that his words penetrated deeper, that he had his heart tangled and twined with each one.

And then Mary turned back to Judas and said, “You don’t look at him and wonder if it all might be true?”

Judas watched Jesus address the gathered. He watched Jesus, saw him and didn’t look away, but still he said, “No. It isn’t true.”

**

They stayed in Capernaum for a week, and when they left they didn’t turn north. They moved south again, toward Judea, toward Jerusalem. They skirted the city of Tiberias, but it didn’t matter. The tone was changing throughout Galilee. The air was heavy and Judas felt the wind turning against them with each step that they took toward Samaria. 

In the afternoons they stopped and Jesus addressed those who followed. His words were as inspiring as they’d ever been, but he looked tired now, the spark that had returned for a brief moment in Capernaum, that reminder of how it had been, was starting to extinguish itself once more.

Judas looked at the gathered. He studied their faces and he realized that they didn’t see the difference. They couldn’t see the change. Even Peter smiled on Jesus in adoration, blind to the way that Jesus’ face fell when he thought that no one was looking on him. Judas saw the change. He felt it.

He was surprised when, on the third morning after leaving Capernaum, with the rise of Mount Tabor visible in the distance, Jesus, who generally liked to start moving shortly after day break, lingered on the hillside, talking and laughing with some of the children. As an hour passed, then two, it soon became clear that he had no intention of continuing on their pilgrimage that day.

It was Jesus’ brother, James, who approached him first. 

He stood before Jesus, watched as the children scattered, and then said, “Perhaps we should get moving if we expect to make Jerusalem in time for the Feast.”

Jesus looked up. He scanned the group, paused when he reached the cluster of his twelve. Finally his eyes stopped on Judas and he said, “This is as far as I travel with you now. I will not be going on to Jerusalem.”

James followed Jesus’ look, turning toward Judas. Judas shook his head. He knew that he had little to do with this change in Jesus. If Jesus meant to go to Jerusalem, nothing that Judas said could stop him. James turned to Peter for his answers instead and Peter looked to John. John merely shrugged and so it was Peter who stepped forward and knelt before Jesus, took Jesus’ hand in his.

“You are needed in Jerusalem,“ Peter started. “What purpose is there if not to be seen, to be heard, and to show the world that you are - “

“It is not yet time for me to return there,” Jesus interrupted. “But as my disciples, my apostles, go on without me and spread my teachings where you can. The world does not fear you as it has started to fear me and you may show yourselves freely in Jerusalem.”

James stepped back in now, dissatisfied with Peter’s attempt at reason, though to Judas Jesus’ words could not sound more reasonable. James tried to argue Peter‘s point with Jesus as only a brother would. Jesus had fashioned himself a public figure, James put forth, and as such, surely he should appear. If Jesus was doing all of these wonderful things, then he should not keep them secret. If it was all true then Jesus should not hide them in the hills. He should show Jerusalem that of which he was capable. He should show the world.

The crowd seemed to flinch and then hold its breath in the face of James’ doubt, but Jesus was unmoved. He turned to Peter where he still knelt before Jesus. He brushed his hand through the curls of Peter’s hair, and when he looked up at his brother again, his smile remained. 

“It is not the right time,” Jesus said again. “I will remain in Galilee as you continue on.”

James opened his mouth but he had run out of words, and eventually he turned away. Peter stood and approaching Judas, he said, “We‘ll leave by midday.”

Judas watched the group prepare. Most had gathered their things when they awoke, assuming that the pilgrimage would continue early as it had yesterday and the day before. Judas watched as Peter and Thomas talked, as James the Lesser pulled out the map. 

Jesus was still seated. Judas turned to him and Jesus smiled, nodded, but did not speak. Mary approached Jesus and took a seat on the ground at his side. Jesus turned to her and took her hand in his.

Eventually, the group gathered itself. Peter returned to Judas and clapped him on the shoulder. “Are you ready?” he asked. “We have a long afternoon of travel before us.”

“You should start moving then,” Judas said. “I will stay here. Someone should stay.”

Peter nodded. He’d expected as much. “Mary has said the same,” Peter said. He smiled at Judas, a smile that reminded Judas of their conversation in Tiberias. “We will reunite with you soon then, brother.” 

“Soon,” Judas agreed, and let Peter draw him into a tight hug.

**

The camp was quiet. Judas sat on the edge of the group, far enough that he couldn’t feel the flames of the fire at its center. Judas watched them, watched the men laugh and talk with one another. 

He looked up to see Mary approaching. She weaved her way easily through the remaining pilgrims, through the men and women who had joined their group as they passed through the fields and the villages, those who chose not to continue on at Peter‘s side. She still hung close to Jesus, still clung to him, but since their exchange in Capernaum, she’d stopped merely watching Judas and had started to approach him more often instead. She sometimes sat with him in the evenings now, sitting silently at his side as they watched the group together, as they watched Jesus together. She folded down onto the dry grass beside Judas now.

Sheep bleated somewhere in the darkness behind them. Mary looked up, turned her head away from Judas to check on the flock. Some distance away, Jesus left the group clustered by the fire and moved further into the dark of the field. Judas nodded toward him.

“You see how he changed once we left Capernaum?” he asked.

“I see how you’ve changed,” Mary said after a moment. She plucked at the grass around her, smoothed it beneath her palms. “You walk as though your heart is weighing you down. As though it’s getting so heavy that soon you won’t be able to lift it at all.”

Judas turned toward her, surprised by her words. They were the very words he might have used to describe the changes in Jesus.

“Jesus sees it too,” Mary said. 

“Is that why you’re here with me?” Judas guessed. “Because Jesus is worried?”

Mary shook her head, but then said, “Yes.”

Judas let out a puff of breath, unsure of Jesus’ motives in sending her.

“I think he wanted to be alone,” Mary admitted. “He was looking for an excuse to ask me to leave his side.”

Judas searched out Jesus once more, found him in the field. He had moved further still from the group, but several of them followed him. They kept their distance, hanging back, but close enough. Close enough that Jesus couldn’t imagine himself alone.

Mary reached out for Judas, took his hand and wrapped it in hers. Her hands were small, but warm on his skin. He remembered the feel of her forehead as she lay sick on the blankets in her father’s home. She seemed that woman to him again, here in the darkness of the fields of Galilee.

Judas remembered the way that Peter had told him that Mary intended to stay in Galilee, the smile on his face that seemed to say “she doesn’t unsettle you so much now, does she?” 

Judas pulled his hand away.

“What is it?” Mary asked, her voice sharp and her frown immediate at his sudden rejection. She looked around, her head snapping from one direction to the next, and when she couldn’t find the reason that he pulled from her, she turned back to him and continued.

“You think that I shouldn’t be here,” she accused. “You laugh at me with the others.”

“No,” Judas disagreed. “I wouldn’t laugh at you.”

“Ah,” Mary agreed with a nod. “I’d forgotten. You never laugh, do you? At least not that I’ve seen.”

When Judas said nothing, Mary continued. “But you do think that I don’t belong. I’ve read it on your face each day since that first.”

Judas shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I think. They laugh at me, not at you. And Jesus wants you here. Everyone can see that Jesus thinks that you belong. He is the reason that you are here, is he not? Jesus is the reason that all of us are here.”

“It matters to me what you think,” Mary insisted.

Judas studied her. He wanted to ask why. Why did it matter to her what he thought? Why did he matter to her at all? Why did she come to sit with him when Jesus would gladly have her at his side? He wanted to ask her, but she had posed her question first and she deserved an answer.

“There has been talk,” he admitted. “It has followed you since we left Magdala.”

Mary looked down at her hands, clenched in the fabric of her skirt. She was quiet for a long moment and then, still looking away from him, she asked her next question.

“Do you believe the talk?” 

“I don’t know,” Judas said. She did not ask for elaboration. She knew the words that were said about her. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”

Mary laughed, but the smile on her face was pained and the shine of her eyes betrayed her upset. 

“It’s true,” Mary said. “Of course, it’s all true. Talk usually is, isn‘t it?” When Judas didn’t respond, she continued. “Do you think - Do you think that he knows?”

“I don’t know,” Judas said. 

“Will he cast me out?” Mary asked. 

Judas was surprised by the question. He shook his head immediately. “He’ll tell you exactly what I’ve already done. He will hold you to him as he kisses your hair. You’ve been with us some time, Mary. How could you think it would be any other way?”

Mary seemed to heave with her sigh. Judas reached out and took her hand in his once more. She studied their fingers for a moment, the feel of his hand in hers. When she looked up, her eyes were dry, and he knew that he’d just watched her fight with herself to keep them so. He’d just watched her win.

“Now you know what weighs on my heart,” Mary admitted. “Will you not tell me what weighs on yours?”

Judas studied her face, the crease that marked her cheek, the impossible depths of her eyes. He felt protective of her suddenly. He was the one she’d confided in, the one of them that she had chosen to trust when she feared she couldn’t turn to anyone, not even the man she’d chosen to follow. 

Judas wanted to tell her everything. He would have shared his burden with her. She would not scoff at him as Peter had done. She would not brush his fears aside. He could tell her all of it and perhaps with this new perspective, together they could find a way to - 

The camp fell suddenly silent for a long moment before it erupted again, a ripple of hushed whispers that turned slowly back into the quiet conversation that had preceded. Jesus had returned. He had given up on solitude.

Jesus was speaking to a man by the fire but he turned when Judas looked up, smiled at him and approached. Jesus crouched before Judas, reached out to set a hand on Judas's cheek. Judas closed his eyes for a moment and nodded in greeting. He opened them again as Jesus moved on, as he turned to Mary, leaned in and kissed her forehead, pressed his cheek against the soft waves of her hair.

Mary’s grip on Judas's hand tightened and Judas turned to catch the tears shining in Mary’s eyes. She kept her eyes on Judas as Jesus embraced her. Judas watched as her tears began to fall, and Judas knew that she believed the words he’d spoken to be true, that Jesus had already forgiven her everything, that perhaps Jesus felt there was nothing to forgive.

**

There were still stars in the sky when Jesus shook him awake. He was crouched beside Judas, his hand firm on Judas's arm and Judas started and sat upright. Judas's heart was racing, ready to flee if they must. He’d dreamt of a Roman army in Capernaum, marching the streets, searching for Jesus, and the dream still lingered, though they were far from Capernaum now and the camp was quiet around him.

“Shh,” Jesus said, set a hand on Judas's chest to still him. 

“Are we in danger?” Judas asked. He looked around. The rest of the camp slept on, peaceful beneath the clear night sky.

“No,” Jesus said. He smiled at Judas in the dark, a reassurance that didn‘t quite reach his eyes. “There is no danger. But we must leave now if we’re to arrive in Jerusalem in time.”

Judas was awake now and he looked to Jesus, alarmed. “You agreed that it was too dangerous.”

“It is too dangerous the way that we travel now,” Jesus agreed. “But were we to go the two of us, in secret - “

“You would leave now?” Judas asked. “You would have these people wake to find you gone?”

“I won’t be able to turn them away if we wait,” Jesus said, looking past Judas at the sleeping forms of the group that had chosen not to continue on to Jerusalem. “I must go on alone.”

“Alone,” Judas repeated.

“You will travel with me?” Jesus asked next, immediately contradicting his last statement.

Judas was sure that Jesus would continue on without him should he refuse. Judas couldn’t stop Jesus from traveling in secret to Jerusalem. He couldn’t stop him from going to the Temple. Judas had no choice but to accompany him, to ensure by his presence that Jesus was kept safe from harm.

“Yes,” Judas said eventually. “I’ll travel with you.”

Jesus stood and held out a hand to Judas, helped Judas up from the ground. Judas gathered his cloak and his bag. He followed Jesus quietly toward the darkness of the field. They‘d reached the edge of the camp when Judas turned to find Mary beside him. Judas regarded her, surprised.

“Are you joining us?” Judas asked, looking to Jesus for denial or confirmation.

“She can come with us,” Jesus said, the decision made quickly as he was anxious to get started on their road.

Judas turned back to Mary. He could see by her face that this wasn’t planned, that she had not been informed of Jesus’ intentions, had merely stumbled upon them as they attempted to flee. 

“We’re going to Jerusalem,” Judas told her, quietly. “For the Feast.”

Mary’s eyes widened at this news and she reached for Judas, took his hand in hers. He hadn’t told her of his concerns, not entirely, but he was right to think that she read him well. Her fingers, firm on his, were more reassurance than Jesus’ smiles and Judas felt glad that she joined them on this journey.

**

They walked through the remainder of the night, stopped to rest as the sun slipped silently over the horizon. When it was light they paused and Mary asked, “Do we walk in Samaria now?”

“Yes,” Jesus confirmed. “For some time now.”

Judas pulled a map from his bag and spread it on the ground before him. They’d followed Jesus through the night. Judas had tried to keep track of the route that he had chosen, but he stared down at the map now and was unsure of where they rested. Jesus leaned over him and pointed to the small line of the road that they traveled. It was barely a foot path. They hadn’t seen anyone in hours.

“It will take us longer to reach Jerusalem by this route,” Jesus admitted. 

Judas traced out their path with his finger. They would reach a small village by midday. They would need to eat something, find something to drink, a place to rest. 

“It’s safer this way,” Judas said.

“Safer from what?” Jesus asked then, as though none of it had been his idea at all. He didn’t care to hear Judas's response, must know what it would be. Instead he stepped away from Judas, walked off toward a jagged pile of rock that emerged from the earth near their path.

Beside Judas, Mary yawned.

He turned to her, pressed his hand to her shoulder. She covered his hand with her own for just a moment before she let it fall away.

“We didn’t mean to wake you at the camp,” Judas admitted. “We were trying to leave quietly, but I am glad that you are here.”

“It wasn’t that,” Mary admitted. “I was awake before Jesus approached you. He shook my shoulder as he passed by me. He did not stop to speak, merely woke me before he moved on to you. When I saw that you were gathering your cloak, I gathered my things as well.”

Judas was surprised to hear this news, though he knew the words shouldn’t surprise him at all. Mary had been spending more and more time with Jesus. She was his companion now, perhaps as much as Judas was. Why would Jesus wish to leave her behind? Still, Judas's heart couldn’t decide how it felt about the news, still trapped with some of the distrust of Tiberias, though he knew that to some extent they’d grown to understand each other since those first few weeks.

“Why do you worry so for him?” Mary asked him then. “What do you think will befall Jesus when he arrives in Jerusalem?”

He remembered her question as they sat together on the edge of the camp. He studied her now, her eyes earnest, questioning. They pulled at him, urged him to put his trust in her.

“You wish to know what weighs on my heart?” Judas asked.

“Yes,” Mary said and reached for him, took his hand in hers.

He told her of the Pharisees warnings in Tiberias. He told her just as he had told Peter before her. He told her of the soldiers in the streets, of the whispers in the crowds. 

“Yet we’ve left Galilee,“ Mary frowned. “Surely Herod can’t reach so far as Judea.“

Judas shook his head, told her of why Jesus had fled back to Galilee to begin with, and finally he told her of Jesus’ response to the Pharisees. 

No martyr should die outside of Jerusalem.

“Martyr,” Mary repeated, tasting the word as it formed on her tongue. Her face told Judas that she liked the taste about as well as he did. She didn’t shrug him off as Peter had done. He’d read her correctly the evening before. 

When Jesus returned to them, Mary said, “Do you mean to keep this entire visit to Jerusalem a secret as we keep our journey secret now?” She looked to Judas as she said it, her face hopeful, and he knew she asked it on his behalf.

Jesus reached for her, touched her cheek as he took a seat beside her. He turned and smiled at Judas, but he looked at Mary when finally he spoke his answer.

“I don’t know that I will know what purpose it is that has brought me to Jerusalem until I’ve arrived and have witnessed the events of the city for myself.”

**

On the second night of their pilgrimage, Mary fell asleep early. Judas watched her sleep, her hands folded beneath her cheek, her neck propped on the bag that she carried. Jesus sat beside him staring into their small fire.

“Perhaps Peter is right,” Jesus said.

“How?” Judas asked, starting at the statement. His head went immediately to that moment when Peter had named Jesus, when he first uttered the words. Jesus had never openly agreed with Peter. He’d never directly confirmed that which Peter started that day.

“Perhaps Peter is right that I should have gone to Jerusalem with my brothers, in the open. What do I have to hide? What am I trying to prove?”

Judas laughed, both in disappointment and relief that the words of which he spoke were not the words that haunted Judas's nights. He then shook his head in disbelief. “Jerusalem is waiting for that very thing. Don’t you know that? Why did we leave Judea, Jesus? Why did we spend these last months in Galilee? Did Galilee need your message more than Judea? Did Capernaum need your words more than Jerusalem did? No.

“You were right to say that things were different for Peter and for James and Thomas and John. It is nothing for them to enter Jerusalem. They will be anonymous faces in a crowd. For them it is a pilgrimage like any other. For you it could mean violence. It could mean imprisonment or worse.”

Jesus shook his head.

“No?” Judas translated, eyebrows raised. “Because your time has not yet come.”

Jesus smiled, but it wasn‘t happy. He set a hand on Judas's knee. “You know me well, my friend.”

“I know you well?” Judas repeated. He shook his head again, covered Jesus’ hand with his own where it still rested on his knee. “I never understand a thing that you say.”

“You understand more than you think,” Jesus countered.

Another riddle that contained no answers. “I don’t even understand you when you are speaking of my understanding.”

Now Jesus laughed. His hand slipped off of Judas's knee, slid out for beneath Judas's palm, and Judas reached for him for a moment before Jesus pulled him into a hug. He kissed Judas's temple, then released him and nodded to Mary.

“We should follow Mary’s example,” Jesus said. “We should rest for the journey tomorrow.”

**

The soldiers marched through Jerusalem. Judas rushed through the streets beside Jesus, pushed Jesus back into an alley between two low buildings as people screamed and rushed past them. In the street a soldier grabbed a man and slit his throat. Judas watched as blood flowed into the dust and the man fell. The solder moved on.

Jesus struggled to free himself from Judas's grip, but Judas held tight, refused to let Jesus reveal himself to the Romans, knew how it would end for him.

“I warned you,” Judas said, his face twisted with the hopelessness of it all now that Rome had chosen her course. 

“Let me go to them then,” Jesus said, and his face was hard. His fingers gripped Judas's shoulders, the tips digging into Judas's arms like claws, pressing harder as screams surrounded them. Screams that could only mean one thing - death.

Judas watched as the man’s blood spilled onto the street. The man didn’t move, he was dead. His blood, Jewish blood, mixed in with the sand, and the next time a soldier passed, he stepped into it without a thought. Jesus gasped, sounded as though he choked on it.

“I warned you,“ Judas said again, pressing them further back into the safety of the dark corner. Jesus shook his head and closed his eyes. “Jesus, these deaths are on you.”

**

Mary found him sitting on large pile of rock. Jesus had stopped to talk with a pilgrim that they‘d encountered on their road. Judas had moved ahead, had perched here on this rock, his back to the others as he stared out at the road ahead of them. He didn‘t see her approach. 

“I’ve been looking for you,” Mary admitted, sitting beside him. “For a moment I thought you’d chosen to travel on without us.”

They’d be in Jerusalem in just a few more days. Judas felt it in the pit of his stomach, felt his dreams as though he’d lived them.

“You didn’t sleep well?” Mary guessed. She reached out to brush the hair back from Judas's forehead.

“Not so well,” Judas agreed. “No.” 

“His face looks much like yours,” Mary said. “I don’t think he sleeps well either.”

Judas wondered at the sort of dreams that Jesus had as he slept.

Mary turned back to check on Jesus, still deep in conversation with the man by the road.

“Tell me how it was,” Mary requested, turning back to Judas now. “You’ve told me your fears now, but there was a time before that, wasn’t there? Tell me how it was at the start of it all.”

Judas told her. He told her of the way it felt to be in his presence. He told her of those first months in Capernaum, of being chosen as one of the twelve on that hillside outside of the city. He told her of Jesus’ sermon that day, of the beauty of it. And then Judas frowned and shook his head.

“He’s as taken with it all as the rest of them now,” Judas said. “He thinks himself immune. He thinks himself above the law of Rome. Either that or he thinks himself a martyr doomed and he plans to take the rest of us with him.”

“You love him,” Mary concluded at the end of it all.

“We all love him,” Judas agreed. It seemed an odd response. He’d expected something different. 

“You think it’s the same?” Mary reached up to brush her fingers through his hair. Judas thought on her words.

“He’s taught you to speak in riddles,” Judas said. 

“Close your eyes,” Mary said.

“Speak plainly,” Judas requested.

“Close your eyes, Judas, and I will show you the meaning of my words.”

Judas shook his head, stared back at her, stubborn. Was this the time for games? Was this the time for tricks? She waited, her eyebrows raised, her face serious. Finally, Judas sighed and gave in, let his eyes fall shut.

“Jesus is approaching us,” Mary said. “Imagine him coming now. His shoes make soft noises against the earth as he walks.”

“What is this?” Judas asked, impatient, but he did as she requested. He imagined Jesus’ approach.

“He’s close now, Judas. He’s smiling at you. His eyes are warm. He reaches out and touches your cheek in greeting.”

Judas felt fingers, warm against his face. He saw Jesus’ face, exactly as Mary had described it to him. He gave in to it, imagined Jesus there, leaned against the hand that stroked him, and he felt Jesus lean in, felt Jesus’ breath, hot against his mouth. Judas held his own, unsure of what might come next. He didn’t have to wait long for the answer, not long at all before Jesus pressed his lips to Judas's.

Judas felt his heart jump, heard the ragged release of the breath he’d been holding. The mouth that kissed his disappeared and Judas leaned forward, sought that kiss again. The second kiss came, just the same as the first and Judas reached up for Jesus, pressed his hand to the smooth skin of Mary’s cheek. She pulled away from his touch.

“Do you see?” she asked. “Do you see how you respond to him? How you yearn for him?”

Judas squeezed his eyes shut tight. 

“Judas?” Mary asked. “Do you see?”

“Yes,” Judas said. He opened his eyes and he looked at her. “Yes, I see.”

Mary regarded him, searched his face, reached up to touch his cheek once more. He pulled her hand away, held it in his own.

“I thought you might be angry with me,” Mary said.

Judas shook his head. “I am not angry.”

“I thought you might be surprised,” Mary continued.

“There is no revelation here,” Judas said. “You think that I don’t know my own heart? I‘ve known it from the start.”

“Does Jesus know it?” Mary asked.

“What is my love to him?” Judas said with a shrug. “He has the love of thousands. What is my love when faced with that?”

Mary nodded and then stared out into the distance for a long time. Her hand remained with Judas's, firmly holding each other here in the bright sun of the Judean afternoon.

“Love has never been about quantity,” Mary said, finally.

**

Jesus sat on the throne, a sword in his hand. His clothes were soiled, torn, the same clothes that he’d worn in all the years that Judas had known him. The throne was golden and ornate, the seat of a king. 

Judas stared up at Jesus. He ignored the people swirling around him, rushing past him. He stared at Jesus and Jesus stared back at him, their eyes locked on one another as though they were the only two people there, though Judas could hear the crowd, could feel them press against him. 

Judas took a step forward, a step toward Jesus, but Jesus shook her head, just slightly, imperceptible if one wasn’t looking for it. Judas stopped.

When Jesus’ lips moved they formed Judas's name, though Judas couldn’t hear the word. 

And then someone knocked hard into Judas from behind, and when Judas turned and his eyes broke their contact with Jesus, it all changed. The din of the crowd became screams, high and anguished. The movement of the crowd was fighting, people pushing and rushing, solders with swords high and mouths twisted into snarls. A soldier beside Judas ran his sword through the gut of a man who fell to the ground with a scream. Judas stumbled back, turned, found Jesus again.

Jesus’ face was passive as he watched the soldiers tear down the Jewish crowd before him. The crowd that had gathered to see their king, to see the lie for themselves.

“Jesus,” Judas shouted, rushing forward only to be pushed back by the fighting mob. “Jesus!”

Jesus didn’t hear him, didn’t look at him. Jesus had completely forgotten him.

A soldier elbowed Judas in the side and Judas fell, turned to see the soldier hovering over him, the shine of his sword raised in the sun. 

“It‘s all right,” Mary said suddenly beside him, her hands reaching out to shake him, to hold him. “Judas, it‘s all right.”

He let her turn his face toward her. He was breathing heavy as she smoothed his brow with her thumbs, her mouth turned down in a worried frown.

“It was a dream,” he said after a moment.

“A nightmare,” she translated. “Another.”

“It’s only a dream,” Judas said. He pulled Mary’s hands from his face, leaned in to kiss her forehead, and then he turned away from her. He stared up at the sky for a moment and then he turned again to find Jesus looking back at him. 

**

Judas leaned over the map. He traced their route out with the tip of his finger, as he had each morning since they’d split from the others. Each day the path that his finger traced was shorter. Each day his fingertip stopped on Jerusalem and he held it there, stared at it.

“Today we will leave the path and travel east for a time,” Jesus said, leaning over Judas, a palm warm against Judas's back. He touched Judas's hand and Judas let his finger slide from its spot over Jerusalem. Jesus looked for a moment at the city that Judas had covered. He turned to study Judas, their faces close. Judas raised his eyebrows.

“Where?” he asked, drawing Jesus’ attention back to the map.

Jesus’ hand disappeared from Judas's back. “Here,” he said, and pressed his finger to the place on their path.

Mary looked up from where she sat beside Judas, her eyebrows raised now too.

“Why there?” Judas asked. 

“There is a spring,” Jesus said, pulling back. “It’s small and it’s sporadic, but it is there, and for now there is water. A small village has sprung up beside it.”

Mary opened her mouth to speak, then changed her mind and shut her mouth in a small frown.

Jesus smiled at her and answered her retracted question. “The pilgrim we met two days ago on the road,” he said. He took the map from Judas and began rolling it up. “He told me of these people and I would like to speak with them. Do you mind the diversion?” He was looking at Judas now, but it was Mary who spoke.

“There is water there, you’ve said?” she asked.

Jesus nodded. “That is what he told me.”

“Then it is not a diversion so much as it is a necessity,” Mary concluded and began gathering the rest of her things. Judas and Jesus followed her lead.

**

Judas found Jesus sitting among the tents, speaking to a group that had gathered around him, his face and hands animated. Judas listened for a moment. Jesus was teaching lessons that Judas had heard before. The Samaritan, the prodigal son, but Jesus had a way of speaking that made each story sound fresh each time that Judas heard it. A riddle and a revelation. 

Judas didn’t want to hear them now though. He watched as more people gathered around Jesus. There weren’t many, maybe fifteen, but fifteen was enough here. Fifteen was enough in a village this small in the center of Judea. This was enough to get people talking, and if people talked, eventually they would talk to someone who had met Jesus before, and then the word would spread.

Judas watched for a moment longer and then he interrupted, knelt at Jesus’ side.

“Do you think this is wise?” he asked, his hand on Jesus‘ knee. “Perhaps we should move on.”

Jesus smiled at him, and then he smiled at those gathered around him as he stood and gestured for Judas to follow him away from the group.

“These people are no threat to us,” Jesus said.

“Not now,” Judas agreed. “Not until one of them tells a pilgrim on the road of what they’ve learned here and that pilgrim recognizes your words and brings them with him back to Jerusalem. They are a danger then.”

“And then we will be gone.”

“We travel slowly,” Judas countered. “You don’t know that - “

Jesus reached for Judas, clutched at his shoulders, pulled him in to kiss his forehead. Judas let his words trail off as his hands reached out to hold Jesus for a moment in return.

“You spend all of your time worrying about what might happen tomorrow and you miss all that is happening now.”

“How can you say the things that you say and then tell me not to think on them?” Judas countered. “How can you say them and then ask me not to fear for you, for all of us!”

“Look at what is happening now, Judas.” Judas looked around, followed Jesus’ hand that gestured for him to do so, but he knew that he did not see the same things that Jesus saw. He thought that perhaps he never had. 

“Embrace what is happening now,” Jesus repeated.

Judas closed his eyes and shook his head. “What is happening now is a fool’s errand. You have us travel to a city that we know to be hostile toward you, and for what? What do you plan to do once we are there? Even you admit that you do not know! But whatever it is, it means danger not only for you, but for us all.”

“No one will harm you,” Jesus said.

“You don’t know,” Judas insisted, his words angry and sharp.

“I could tell you what I know,” Jesus countered, and his words had a sharpness to them as well now, feeding off the anger in Judas's tone. “I could tell you all of it, and what good would it do? You don’t hear the things that I say. How would saying more help you?”

“Jesus,” Judas breathed, frustrated. 

Jesus looked around him, pulled his cloak tight, the fabric twisting in his fingers.

“Look around you, Judas,” Jesus said. “The day is beautiful and tonight we will rest here. We will break bread with these people and we will teach them as I have taught you.”

“You will miss the start of the Feast,” Judas pointed out.

Jesus raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t that what you want?” And with that Jesus stepped away from him, his hands reaching out for the group that waited, his smiles all for them.

**

Jesus smiled at Judas's warnings day after day, tried to ease Judas's heart in conversation, long and friendly, but his words felt empty to Judas. How could Judas's heart be eased when Jesus still spoke as a Messiah, when he still seemed to believe the words whispered about him, when he refused to dispel the accusations, refused to stop a backlash from Rome? How could Judas's heart be eased when Jesus spoke to the Pharisees with such finality, when he marched to Jerusalem as though to his death?

Jesus could tell Judas all that he knew, and perhaps if Judas asked, Jesus would, but what good would it do? What good? Judas _knew_ what he read in Jesus’ heart. What good was there if this continued? Even now Peter and John were in Jerusalem. Even now they spread the teachings of Jesus, not the man, no, the Messiah. The Christ, they murmured through the crowds, here to free Israel, to reunite and to rule in peace, to usher in the Messianic Age.

Jesus spoke of peace, yes, but Simon would have him go to war, the Pharisees spoke openly of death threats, and the Romans were restless when it came to stopping perceived unrest with force. 

Judas paced and then he prayed and when Mary found him, he was walking again along the edge of the small village that had sprung up here.

She didn’t speak to greet him, merely fell into step at his side. It was Judas who spoke first.

“He’s letting the crowds guide him,” Judas told her. “He’s riding them like a wave, knowing as well as I do that eventually that wave must crest and crash, and he will fall.”

“There are no crowds here,” Mary pointed out. “There is only you and I.”

“No,” Judas said. “Not here. Yet still we march onward toward Jerusalem. What do you think waits there? The Temple, yes, the holiday. And the priests and the Romans, and one man claiming to be the Messiah. King of the Jews, they say. You‘ve heard it. It’s only a matter of time before the Romans hear it too. And how long then before they start to take offense?”

“Why do you stay?” Mary asked. “Why do you stay if you don’t believe the things that are said of him? If they cause you so much distress?”

“You know why I stay,” Judas said, and he didn‘t mean for the words to sound as harsh as they did, as though he was spitting them at her, throwing them in her face. He looked away from her.

“Judas,” Mary said, drawing his attention back to her. She reached for him, pulled him toward her. She intended to embrace him, but Judas was in no mood for comfort and he resisted her pull. She frowned at his stiffness, but she didn’t release him, she didn’t remove her hands from his arms. Instead she leaned in, pressed her lips to his, soft but unyielding.

Judas closed his eyes. He remembered how she kissed him on the road, their faces warmed by the late morning sun. He remembered her mouth, Jesus’ mouth, as it covered his own, attempted to tell him of truths that he’d already known. When Mary pulled away now, Judas gave in. He reached out for her and kissed her again, just as he had done days before.

Her grip on his arms grew tighter when Judas kissed her, as though she was surprised by his response. And then she pulled him in, tight against her, and he kissed her again. When he felt her mouth open against his, he pulled away, his breath heavy.

“Why do you stay?” Judas asked her, their mouths still close, their noses brushing as he spoke.

“You don’t know?” Mary asked. “After all of this, you haven’t guessed?”

And Judas nodded, closed his eyes again, because of course he had. He’d seen it from the start, felt it as it twisted in his heart and his stomach, as it softened into acceptance and friendship. He knew it from the moment Mary awoke in Magdala and looked on them both. Mary was as in love with Jesus as Judas had ever been.

“And why don’t you tell him so?” Judas asked. He looked at her again, pulled back so that he could see her clearly, his question a mirror of the one that Mary had asked him days before.

She stared at Judas for a moment, her gaze hard, and then she turned away from him as she answered. “I wouldn’t know how. And now I don‘t know that I could tell him even if I did.”

He nodded. He didn’t need to ask her why. He understood that too.

She turned back to him, reached for him, touched his face. “You could show me how,” she suggested.

“What?” Judas asked, and his surprise at her response caused the word to be followed by a small nervous laugh.

“How would you love him, Judas?” Mary asked, her hands on his cheeks. “Show me how you would love him.”

Judas's eyes were wide as he stared back at her. 

“Just as we did before,” Mary offered. She reached up, her fingers twisting for a moment in the dark curls of his hair before she let her hand fall away. 

Judas shook his head. He wouldn’t. How could he? 

“I’ll be pretending too,“ Mary admitted when she saw Judas's hesitation. 

Judas lifted his head. “Pretending that I am him?”

“Yes,” Mary said and stroked his face again. She smiled to reassure him, but it looked nervous, wary, as though she was as afraid of Judas's rejection as she was of Jesus’.

Judas studied her face. He looked at the thin line of her mouth, her enormous dark eyes, the crease on her right cheek. There was a smudge of dirt on her chin and when Judas reached up to smooth it away, Mary’s eyes fell closed and her mouth fell open, and Judas had never thought her more beautiful.

Mary would kiss him as she would Jesus. She would love him as she wished to love Jesus, and she asked that he do the same. Kiss her as he wished to kiss Jesus. Love her as he wished to love Jesus.

“Here?” Judas asked, and his voice seemed high and foreign in his throat.

Mary’s eyes snapped open, her dark gaze back on him, checking his face to make sure that she heard his answer correctly. Once confirmed, she shook her head, looked around, then nodded to a small building some distance away. 

There was water to be found in this region, a small spring, intermittent and not enough for farming, not enough for the settlers tents to become permanent homes, but at some time, someone had built this small building before abandoning the hillside for less arid land. The building had fallen into disuse, a door hung on one hinge, but there was space inside, and Judas let Mary lead him, let her remove his cloak and lay it down across the floor. He let her guide him onto his knees, and then she removed the bag that she carried from her shoulder and knelt beside him.

He reached out to touch the place where her neck curved into her shoulder. She covered his hand with her own, then lifted it to her mouth to kiss his palm, her face turning to press her cheek to the curve of his hand. His fingers slid back into her hair and he leaned in and kissed her mouth. Her eyes were closed now and he wondered if she imagined that it was Jesus who kissed her. He wondered if his kiss now was how she imagined Jesus’ kiss might be. He wondered how he might compare to Jesus in her head. 

Judas tried to shake the thought. He closed his own eyes and put himself into the moment with her. This was Jesus that he kissed. Jesus who he’d loved for three years, followed, and yes, when he was allowed to admit it to himself, he had always yearned for this moment. And here he was, Jesus kissing him, his mouth soft on Judas's. Judas imagined the rough scratch of Jesus’ cheek against his own, a contrast to the softness of the kiss. 

This was Jesus here with him, Jesus who scared him and infuriated him. Jesus who seemed to care about his own safety less and less as each day passed. Jesus who believed the lies, who fed off of them. Judas felt his kiss grow harder, more desperate, and he pulled away and buried his face against Jesus’ neck instead, kissed him there. He pressed his hand to Jesus’ chest and imagined Jesus’ gasp as Judas’s fingers pulled at the hair there, as his mouth sucked at Jesus’ skin.

“You would worship him,” Mary said, her words a gasp of realization, her mouth so close to Judas's ear.

Judas kissed her shoulder again. He _wished_ that he could worship Jesus, give his heart over entirely. He watched as the others did so and he wished that he could follow them, that he could push aside his fears. He wished it was so easy. He wished that his love was enough to keep Jesus safe, to convince him to pull back, to let Judea cool just as he’d pleaded with Jesus in Galilee to let Herod cool. He wished that his love was enough for Jesus to listen to him, listen to his words and see that they came from Judas's heart, that this dread was genuine and it was real. 

Judas squeezed his eyes shut hard as he kissed across Mary’s shoulder, kissed the hollow at the base of her throat, and felt her hands in his hair. Mary’s hands pulled Judas's face from her neck, pulled him back to her mouth, her kisses tender yet insistent. Her thumbs brushed his cheeks, wiped away tears there, and it wasn’t until that moment that Judas realized they’d started to fall.

Mary guided Judas down until he was lying back against his cloak, leaning over him to kiss his mouth, her kisses too short, over too quickly. Her hands slid down from his face, running over his shoulders and his chest. He pulled her closer to him, pushed up against her lips to prolong their contact, to demand more from her mouth. She gave it to him readily, pressing back down against him. Her kisses bit at his lips, worked his mouth open until he was gasping against her as her tongue caressed his in small wet strokes that inflamed him.

Her hands continued their journey across his body, slipping up beneath his tunic they slid across his stomach, warm on his skin. She moved away from his lips, but only for a moment, only long enough to move closer still, to straddle his body with hers, her hips resting deliciously above his. She leaned in to continue their kiss even as her hands pushed up at his tunic and he leaned up on his elbows and helped her slip it off over his head. Her hands were on his bare chest now and her hips rocked against him slightly. Judas pulled her to him and pressed his mouth to the center of her chest, just above the fabric of her dress, the slight swell of her breasts. 

He set his hands at her waist and watched as her movement shook the strap of her dress free of her shoulder, watched as it slid down her arm and exposed her to him. He leaned in again and kissed the breast that had been presented, heard the pattern of her breathing change where her mouth was pressed close to his ear.

When he moved to shift them, to set her back on his cloak, sure now where they were going, she stopped him, a hand on his chest. 

“Wait,” she said, her voice hushed, controlled. She moved off of him, pushed the strap of her dress back up to her shoulder. She made quick work of his trousers, pulling them off of him directly. Her hands fluttered over him for a moment, and then she changed her mind, pulled away, and reached for her bag.

“What is it?” Judas asked, leaning up to get a better look at her.

She sifted through the contents and then she pulled from the bag a small bottle that she shook for a moment in her hand.

“Don’t waste that here,” Judas said, automatically, though he did not know what the bottle contained. The look of it suggested that it was not easy to come by. “Not on me.”

“I have more,” she countered, and then she pulled an identical bottle from her bag. “You see? Another bottle, brand new.”

She watched him lying before her as she poured some of the contents onto her fingers, then rubbed them together. The smell of it was strong, sharp and fragrant, a smell that Judas recognized sticking faintly to the skin that he had kissed at the base of Mary‘s neck. She watched him with large eyes and he felt self conscious, exposed and on display, and only now noticed that Mary was still fully dressed.

“Besides,” Mary said then. She raised her eyebrows and smiled at him as she returned to his side, as she reached out to touch him again. “This won’t be a waste.”

He swallowed and nodded. He watched her hand as she reached up, touched the oil on her finger to his neck and then traced it down along his side, her touch causing him to suck in his breath, the tickle of it forcing a smile that disappeared again as soon as her finger slid across his hip. 

She was stretched out beside Judas now, her body propped up by the arm she wasn’t using to tease him, and he reached his hand up to curl lightly around that arm now, watched as her fingers danced into the hair at the base of him, but did not touch him where he wished it most. Judas's breath came out in a frustrated huff and he pulled at Mary’s arm until she gave in, leaned over him and kissed his mouth again. These were no shallow kisses, not easy and light as they were when they’d started this. This kiss was hungry as Mary sucked at Judas's tongue and Judas moaned low in his throat at the promise of it all. 

Her hand pushed at the inside of his thigh and he let her move him, his knees rising up, spreading apart as she repositioned herself between them, as he pulled her back again and again to kiss. Her mouth was firm on his when he felt her fingers begin to rub against the tight skin just behind his manhood. He bit at her mouth and pulled her closer against him. Mary had other ideas though, had always had other ideas, and when he felt one small finger push into him, he grunted, his eyes wide, and felt her smile against his lips.

His body was tense and he watched her as she pulled back, pulled back far, kneeling between his legs as she studied his reaction to her movement, to the intrusion. Her finger was slick with the ointment, and she massaged his skin, rubbing in circles before sliding in again. Judas's mouth fell open and he shook his head, not sure himself if he was actually protesting this. She repeated the movement and he felt arousal jump within him, felt himself harden with it as his knees pulled in tight to press at her sides. 

“Relax,” Mary entreated, her voice low and warm, but the look on her face told Judas that her word was an order. She didn’t wait for him to obey, however, but moved forward again instead. Her finger pressed in, curled against him, pressed once more, and Judas grew harder still. 

“Close your eyes,” Mary said to him again. “Close your eyes, Judas, and give yourself to him.”

Judas listened to her words, the words she’d taken from Jesus’ lips that now twisted to mean something else entirely. 

“Follow me. Leave everything else behind you and spread the word that I teach to you here,” Jesus had said on that hill outside of Capernaum, years ago now. Judas had told Mary of the sermon, of the moment when Jesus chose them, the twelve. “Give yourself over to me.”

She knew his words and she used them now in this moment. As her finger caressed him, she made his same request. Judas felt his entire body shudder at the memory, the implication of it, but he did not close his eyes. Judas watched as she pressed her free hand down against his hip, the pressure of her small frame holding him down as she stretched another finger in beside the first.

Judas held his breath, tense, so tense, until he felt that second finger pressed in firmly against the first. When they curled, just slightly and in unison, Judas gasped and reached out to cover Mary’s hand at his hip with his own, pulling it up to grip it in his. When her fingers thrust in again the stretch of them had Judas pushing up, impaling himself deeper still, and he cried out into the empty shed.

“Shh,” she said, her hand shaking free from his and flying up to cover his mouth. “We aren’t so far from the tents. We might be heard.”

And Judas gasped against her hand at the thought that Jesus might find them like this, that Jesus might see this, that Jesus might ever be where Mary was now. Mary’s fingers continued their work even as she kept her other hand firm over his mouth and Judas moved beneath her, his breathing ragged against her palm, his eyes staring up at her. 

She leaned down over him, pressed her mouth to his chest, touched the dark hair that her lips found there with her tongue. Her body closer now, Judas thrust up against her, felt her fingers press deeper within him in response. 

The smell of the ointment filled the small space, stronger still on Mary’s hand. It stuck in his nostrils, intoxicating him. Mary kissed his chest again as another finger slid within him, stretching and pushing in such a way now as to only be suggestive of one act. Judas stared up at the ceiling of the crumbling building. His shifted and spread his legs to give her better access, and she leaned closer against him, so that with each thrust of her hand, Judas pressed himself up against her torso, so that with each thrust, Judas could imagine that it was Jesus pressing within him, taking him in this most earthly way.

Mary’s hand slid away from his mouth, sure now that he didn’t intend to cry out again. Her fingers came up along his cheek and then passed over his eyes, and Judas obeyed and shut out the world around them. He felt her mouth still on his chest, her fingers still working him in a most delicious rhythm, the press and stretch of them vibrating through him.

And then her lips disappeared from his chest and he felt her other hand, low on his hip, and then exactly, yes, exactly there, wrapping around him, and his mouth fell open in a soundless cry as he thrust up into the ring of her fingers. She leaned into him again, worked him with both of her hands, trailed wet kisses across her chest as her entire body moved against him, moved with her fingers and her hand. 

Each thrust of her fingers had him straining, pushing up into her hand, against her stomach, his thighs tight with the effort. His hands gripped at her shoulders, held her close, her mouth open against his chest now, as though she too was breathing heavy, was too aroused to fill her lungs entirely with much needed air. 

“Can you see it?“ she asked. “Can you see how it might be?“

And with his eyes closed, he could almost see it. He could feel Jesus’ hands on him, the stretch and push of Jesus within him. He could almost see it, but he couldn’t sustain the fantasy, couldn’t give it enough root in reality, and when pleasure sparked within him again, it was gone. 

“Jesus,“ he said, and the name sounded like a low groan on his lips.

Her teeth scraped at his skin in response and her fingers pushed within him, curled and stretched and pushed again, and he thrust up against her, straining. She broke the rhythm, thrust deeper once more, sooner than he’d expected, and his release tore through him, shuddered through his thighs so that he shook with it, strained with it. He heard himself utter Jesus’ name once more and then he fell back against the floor, chest heaving, spent.

His hands slid against her shoulders, found their grip and pulled at her. She moved against him and he shuddered with it, echoes of light shivering through him still. He pulled at her and she moved, her body sliding up against his, her leg moving until she straddled his right thigh. Her fingers slid from him and he hissed at the pull, sighed at the loss. She kissed his mouth and swallowed the sigh. He reached for her, held her close, and kissed her lips again.

At the beginning of this, each of his kisses told the truth of his feelings for Jesus. Each one was another confession. He wished he could give them all to her, save none of them for himself. He’d wondered if the story in her kisses was the same. His story wasn’t the same anymore. He was kissing Mary now as well. He kissed her as much as he kissed Jesus through her. His kisses told stories of his feelings for her, just as they told stories of his feelings for Jesus. It was a different story, a less sure story, newer, but it was there, it had been there since he‘d looked on her in Magdala.

Her hips moved against him, a slide that he recognized and he held her, kissed her as she moved, as she rocked against his leg. His hand slid down her back, found the curve of her and pulled her closer to him, aided her in her movements against him. She gasped into his mouth, her body rolling against his naked thigh. She’d never removed her dress, and the sound of the fabric seemed loud around them as they moved together. He lifted his leg toward her, just slightly bent to support her, his thighs tired from their earlier straining, and she moaned low into his mouth in response. 

Did she picture Jesus when she looked on him now? When she closed her eyes and moved against them, her rocking increasing in urgency, moving with abandon - when she took her pleasure from his body in this way, was it Judas that she used? The thought that it might be, the thought that the wetness of her against his thigh might be for him, pulled at Judas, sparked within him, and he shifted and turned until she fell away from his thigh, her back to the floor now as his had been moments before.

She reached for him immediately. She’d been close, close enough that she turned on her side, curled in on herself, tried to hold the echoes of pleasure within her. Judas thought he saw her lips form around Jesus’ name, but she didn’t give voice to it and she reached for Judas instead. He pressed down against her, kissed her upturned mouth, and when his hand found her, she grabbed his wrist and held him tight. He pressed his hand there, his palm flat against the heat of her, her arousal wetting his skin though the thin fabric of her underskirt, this tunic the only thing that separated them now. He’d meant to push it out of the way, but he hadn’t had the time, not before she’d grabbed hold of him, pushed his hand to her. She held him there and she gasped, her grip tighter still as she shook against him, her thighs locking his hand against her. His open palm pressed hard to her, and his fingers curled in against her, just slightly, just enough so that she convulsed with it and held him tighter still. 

“Mary,“ he whispered, leaned in to kiss her hair, and she shook against him one last time, her mouth open and eyes wide before she released his hand and rolled back, away. He watched the rise and fall of her chest, the heave of her breasts beneath the cloth of her dress. Her breath came fast and heavy. The arm that rested by Judas was relaxed, but her fingers clenched and unclenched as though searching. He reached up, set his hand in hers and her fingers curled around his. And then she turned to look at him and she smiled. 

**

The crowd was raucous, celebratory. The music boomed through the night and everywhere Judas turned people danced and laughed, teeth white and shining. Mary was there, swirling in the middle of it, her hair flying out from her neck, her eyes bright with happiness.

Judas searched the throng for Jesus, for his familiar posture, for the smile that he knew would play at Jesus’ lips. Jesus couldn’t remain unmoved, not surrounded by this. This could lift anyone, lighten anyone’s heart. He pushed through a group of laughing men, scanned for the familiar cloak hanging from Jesus’ narrow shoulders. He pushed through one gathering only to be blocked by another, and another when he pushed through them. All were laughing, all were dancing. All except for the group standing beside the table that held the feast. 

This was no religious feast. It could only be Roman in its extravagance. The table was long, piled high with food, more food than Judas had ever seen, yet no one touched any of it. Peter stood beside it, but when Judas reached for him, Peter looked past him as though he couldn’t see him at all. 

Mary rushed to him then, a flurry of fragrant fabric as she gripped his arm and grinned. He thought she might kiss him for a moment, but then as he watched, she turned toward the table and her face fell, crumbled.

“What is it?” Judas asked. 

Mary looked around them, fear taking over her features. Judas looked now too. The dancing groups were gone, replaced by soldiers, their faces hard and ominous, though a few of them still laughed. The laughter wasn’t joyful. It was triumphant, yes, but bitter, sour and mean.

Peter tried to run, but was stopped by the men, punched and thrown to the ground. Simon rushed to his side. Judas turned back to the table, to the covered platter at the center of it. The platter stood alone, the table bare along the edges of it, separated from the rest of the food. The gold of its domed lid was polished to a near impossible shine.

Judas stepped toward it and Mary pulled at him, tried to force him to step away. Judas was sure then, sure that the answer to all of this was hidden on that covered plate. He reached for it and everything went quiet, everything went still. And then he lifted the cover and the whole world erupted in screams. Mary shrieked beside him, covered her face. She screamed over and over again, for there on the plate was Jesus’ head, severed from his body, lying at the center of the feast. There was Jesus’ head, presented just as John’s before him, presented on a platter to Herod’s court.

Judas dropped the cover. He tried to turn away, but his legs buckled and he fell. The soldiers were closing in, but it didn’t matter now. It didn’t matter. Judas's chest hurt and he gripped at it, knew that it was his heart breaking in two. He crouched there in the dirt beside the feast and he knew that it was entirely his fault.

All of this. All of it.

**

Judas woke with a start, Mary’s screams still ringing in his ears.

The night was quiet, calm. The stars were bright above Judas. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath, as he tried to still his heart. Beside him Jesus was asleep, but restless. Judas reached out, touched a hand to his shoulder to make sure that he was really there, that they were really here at all. Jesus’ presence confirmed, Judas sighed and leaned back, stared up at the sky.

There was no moon. Lying here it was hard to believe the things he’d seen as he slept. It was hard to imagine anything so horrible might happen. But it might happen. It might, if those who spoke out against them now had their way. It would if they - 

Jesus shifted, turned to face Judas, his breath a warm puff on Judas's cheek. Judas closed his eyes. If Judas tried, if he pulled himself back from the dreams, from their journey during their waking hours - if Judas tried, with Jesus asleep beside him now, Judas could put himself back to the start of it all. It was like this then. The nights quiet and Jesus close. It was like this when they’d started, when everything was new and the light in Jesus' eyes burned brightly and set everyone who came near him aflame. When his words seemed alive and they prickled the skin with the truth of them. It was like this then.

Then Judas might have turned, lifted a hand to press the hair back from Jesus' forehead, damp and feverish in the darkness. He’d lean in, press a kiss to the heat of Jesus' skin. 

Jesus had been so human then. So real. Judas would have followed Jesus to the ends of the earth. He would have gladly died for him, beside him. 

Things were different now. The road that they traveled was quiet, but in the cities the crowds pulsed and the words on their lips scared Judas, forced him to plead with Jesus to pull back, to just stop and _think_. 

A gust of wind blew through their tiny camp. _Messiah_ , it seemed to whisper as it caught in the fabric of Mary‘s cloak. The few small flames of the dying fire flickered for a moment before it all went still again.

They’d left the village by the spring early that morning. They were far from it now, far from anyone, just the three of them lying together in the desert. 

Judas turned to study Jesus beside him. He wouldn’t fall back to sleep tonight. He couldn’t for fear that his dreams would return. Judas looked on Jesus' sleeping face and tried to forget the clash of the Roman soldiers, the sight of blood in the sand. 

_Dangerous_ , the wind hissed through the dry shrubs, its voice as loud as the crowds in the squares. Jesus looked young, younger than when he was awake. The coarse hair of his beard caught on his clothing and Judas reached out and plucked the fabric away.

“Can‘t you see it?” Mary had asked, her fingers pulling pleasure from Judas's body, pulling Jesus’ name from Judas's lips. “Can’t you see how it might be?”

He thought of those nights in the desert, years ago. He thought of the comfort between them, of the ease he’d felt in his heart. 

Judas imagined himself kneeling before Jesus. He imagined himself kissing Jesus’ face, his mouth and his chest.

“You would worship him,” Mary had gasped, and Judas would anoint Jesus with kisses, would smooth back his hair and kiss his temple, would hold Jesus to him as he had nights before in the desert. Judas tried, but even then, even after the events of that afternoon, Judas could hardly think on more.

Jesus shifted beside him.

“Jesus,” Judas whispered, but Jesus was asleep and did not respond. Judas shifted closer until their foreheads nearly touched. He could feel Jesus' breath, hot and sweet on his mouth and chin.

“Jesus,” Judas whispered again. This time Jesus' breath changed its pace. Judas held his own breath, waited, but Jesus merely shifted, turned his face away from Judas as his breath evened back with sleep.

Judas pressed closer. He pressed his palm light to Jesus' chest, felt the rhythmic rise and fall. He kissed the soiled fabric at Jesus' shoulder, the white long turned a dusty brown. Judas pressed his nose into the folds of cloth and his breath caught in his throat, then choked out in a sob.

Jesus' chest stopped its steady rhythm against the palm of Judas's hand. It stopped entirely for a moment and Judas pressed his eyes shut, held as still as he could. 

Jesus was awake. Judas imagined him, how he must look, his emptiness and quiet detachment as he stared up at the stars. Judas didn’t want to look on him. He didn’t need confirmation that the fire that used to light Jesus from within was rapidly being extinguished. Judas saw it every day and it terrified him. What would happen when Jesus lost the hold he had over the crowds? What would happen when they leaned in as Judas did now? When they smelled the sharp scent of sweat on Jesus' skin and realized that it was all a lie. Jesus was a man, nothing more. Nothing more.

Mary shifted on the opposite side of the fire. Judas started, but Jesus was unalarmed. His arm came around Judas and held him close. Judas watched as Mary stilled and fell back to sleep with a sigh. Jesus sighed too, heavy and long.

Jesus turned into him and Judas felt the scratch of Jesus' cheek against his forehead.

“Judas,” Jesus whispered, his hand firm on Judas's shoulder. Judas wrapped an arm around Jesus, rested his face on Jesus' chest and felt the beating of Jesus' heart in his ear. 

“Judas,” Jesus whispered, an echo of Judas as Jesus had slept. Perhaps Jesus had been awake after all. Perhaps he had heard Judas and this was his reply. 

His hand stroked the hair at the back of Judas's neck and Judas closed his eyes and wished to dream of nights like these, nights when the threat of Jerusalem seemed distant, when it had seemed that Jesus burned just for him.

Jesus stilled beside him, his hand pausing on Judas's neck. Judas opened his eyes and listened. Together they waited and then Judas heard it too, a noise from the direction of the road. He lifted his head, sat up.

It was too late, Judas knew. If the travelers weren’t friendly, it was too late for them to keep their presence unknown. Their fire was like a beacon in the desert. They hadn’t grown more careful as they’d approached Jerusalem. It could be anyone on the road. 

Jesus was sitting up too. He regarded Judas with eyes wide in the dark. His lips were parted slightly, and they moved, wordless, as he listened. They’d made their camp behind a rise on the eastern edge of the road, if not for the fire they would remain unseen. Judas moved, began collecting earth to put out the flames but Jesus reached out, stilled Judas with a hand on his arm.

“They’ve passed,” Jesus whispered. 

Judas waited, and when he heard the travelers again, their voices sounded farther away, the sound of their feet barely audible over the wind.

“Go back to sleep,” Judas said. “I will keep watch until morning.”

Jesus nodded and settled back down. He didn’t close his eyes, continued to watch Judas instead, and after a moment, Judas turned his back to Jesus, studied Mary’s sleeping form, then turned out to stare at the dark. Jesus was restless behind him. Twice Jesus nearly fell asleep only to jerk awake again, but eventually he seemed to drift off, fall back into a fitful sleep. 

Judas kept his vigil until the fire died and then he stretched out and closed his eyes, slept the last hour until dawn.

**

Judas felt his feet grow heavy as they approached the city. He tried to tell himself that it was the lack of sleep. That was why Mary’s step seemed light while Jesus hung back, walking slow beside Judas. It was lack of sleep that slowed their pace.

Jesus was quiet next to him and Judas wondered if Jesus told himself the same lies. It was lack of sleep, of course, compounded over all of Samaria and on across Judea. It was that, yes, but more than that it was the dread that slowed Judas's steps, the foreboding that pulled at his heart, his nightmares echoing across the desert. 

It was the third day of the Feast. If Judas had only found a way to delay them, they might have missed it entirely. Jerusalem would be emptying out now if he’d only tried. If he’d read the map wrong, lead them astray. If he’d try to convince Jesus to stay by the spring instead of urging him to move on. 

Jesus would have been happy to stay with the people there. He would have been happy to talk with them, to embrace them, to teach them. It was places like that, that temporary village of tents, where Jesus had always thrived. And Judas - Judas could have encouraged it. He could have urged Jesus to stay. He'd been scared there, but he knew now that he had made a mistake.

Afterward, in the shed, Mary had pulled a cloth from her bag, wetted it with what was left of her drinking water. She’d reached for Judas and wiped his hands and his stomach, and he’d pulled her in and kissed her. Once she was finished, she stood, clutched the bag to her chest and smiled at him again before she left. She planned to do her own washing with the women at the spring. With Mary gone, Judas had dressed alone.

Now she walked in front of them, her steps so much more sure than Judas's as Jerusalem loomed. They hadn’t spoken much of what they’d done, of what it meant. There wasn’t time. There wasn’t a moment that was right for a conversation. And even if there had been, Judas wasn’t sure that either one of them had the answers yet. Perhaps if they’d stayed, they would have figured some of them out.

Four more days and the Feast would have been over. There would have been no reason to enter Jerusalem, no reason not to turn back and return to Galilee, or better yet, head into Perea instead.

They were quiet as they entered the city. Judas stared up at the walls and held his breath. In Galilee, Herod had grown weary of them, yes, but in Jerusalem, they’d been weary of Jesus for some time. Yet here in the city the crowds were loud, thick outside of the temple, and Judas thought that he heard Jesus’ name on more than one person’s lips. 

Judas stayed close, refused to let Jesus out of his sight. Beside him, Mary reached out, took his hand in hers and held it tightly. They passed through the booths, sukkah after sukkah, not stopping at any of them, their destination clear. They moved through the crowd, bound together as they followed Jesus toward the Temple walls. 

Judas searched the crowd for the others, for Peter and John. People were grouped together, standing in clusters in the Temple courts, the crowd still thick on the third day of the Feast. The courts were large and the other disciples could be anywhere within these walls. Jesus moved slowly through the groups, listening, nodding when someone met his eye. He reached out to touch a child, then stopped to listen to another rabbi speak to a group that had gathered around him.

Beside Judas, Mary turned and stared around her in awe as though it was her first time in Jerusalem, though Judas was sure that that could not be true. She smiled when she saw him watching her, held tightly to his hand as she leaned in to kiss his cheek. Judas smiled in return though he knew that his own smile appeared wary and far less sure. 

And then Judas heard it, definite this time, not a trick of the ears. The men to his right had spoken Jesus’ name, were talking of him now, wondering where he was, why he had not shown his face here as the rest of the crowd had done.

Jesus stopped moving too, was listening though his back was turned to the men.

“He’s harmless,” one of the men said, his face wrinkled and his back bent with age.

“He’s a fraud,” another man spat quietly. “He spreads unrest among us with his lies and deceit.”

The man went on, his elderly companion merely shrugging at the other’s claims. He spoke quietly, softly, not willing to project the topic of their discussion, not wanting to draw attention from the crowd or the Roman guards that were scattered among them.

“If he is not a fraud then why is he not here?” the man concluded, spreading his hands as he delivered his final verdict. The old man shrugged again, but the rest of the group was nodding in agreement with the speaker.

Jesus turned then, caught Judas's eye. Judas saw the look on his face, knew that in that moment Jesus had determined the purpose of their pilgrimage, the reason for coming here. Judas shook his head, reached out to pull Jesus back, but he was stopped by Mary, still holding his hand. She wasn't paying attention to the conversation. She hadn’t expected his sudden movement and she stumbled as he lurched forward. Judas stopped, swung around to stop her from falling, released her hand as he made sure that her feet were steady.

Jesus was already pushing away from them when Judas turned toward him again.

“Come on,” he said, and rushed to follow. 

He pushed through the crowd after Jesus but he couldn’t catch up, not without rushing, shouting or making a scene, and so he was some distance away when Jesus stopped on the steps outside the inner courts. He watched as Jesus held out his hands, began speaking loudly to those around him. Once he had their attention, he drew them in, sat down and continued at a more measured volume, his pace slowing.

People had heard his shouts, had come to see what the commotion was and the crowd around Jesus began to grow. Jesus was in his element, animated, his hands moving as he spoke and smiled and interacted with those nearest him. Judas felt someone stop beside him and turned to find Mary there, staring at Jesus. Her lips were parted and her eyes shown as she stood there, rapt.

She believed it, he knew. She would never admit it to Judas, would never say so to him, but he knew that in her heart she believed the things that were said. She never would have left Magdala if she didn’t.

People were moving in on either side of Judas now, whispering to each other.

“Is this him?” they asked, as others around them confirmed or denied. This went on for some time and all the while the crowd grew, all the while Jesus spoke. Judas tried to listen, but he could not. He could not concentrate on anything but the movement of the crowd.

“He’s the man they’re trying to kill,” someone said beside Judas, and Judas froze, listened for more. 

“Why?” Someone else asked, but Judas hardly heard it, only heard the word kill echoed over and over again, then _Messiah_ as it reverberated through the crowd. Some of the Temple authorities were approaching, but they stopped before they reached Jesus. Jesus acknowledged them and then continued to speak to those gathered as though nothing had changed. The authorities did not move closer, though it was clear to Judas that they were displeased. They would detain Jesus if they could.

They wouldn’t, Judas knew. He knew it as well as Jesus did. They arrived and they hovered, but they never laid a hand on Jesus, not here when he was surrounded by the crowd, not during Sukkot. It wasn’t the Temple authorities that concerned Judas here. Not much. Not now. They may hold Jesus yes, imprison him perhaps, but they could not have Jesus killed. It was the Roman soldiers scattered amongst them, standing on the steps of the Temple, mingling in with the crowd. They were the ones to fear.

Judas scanned, started to count the soldiers, but he lost count when his eyes set on a familiar face. It was Peter, drawn by curiosity toward the gathering crowd. Peter saw Judas immediately, and his face lit as he smiled and waved frantically in greeting. He started his approach.

“You’re here,” Peter said, his voice a little breathless as he nodded in Jesus’ direction. He turned then to smile at Mary, reached for her and pulled her into an embrace.

“You convinced him to come,” Peter said to Judas from over Mary’s shoulder.

“No,” Judas said. “This wasn‘t my idea.”

Peter nodded, then shook his head, realizing how uncharacteristic that would have been. “Of course,” he said. He looked at Mary. “It was you then?”

“He decided this on his own,” Mary said. She smiled at Peter before she turned back to Jesus. The smile still played at her lips though she hardly paid attention as Judas and Peter continued to talk.

“Where are the others?” Judas asked.

“They’re here,” Peter said. “We’ve been spread out across the city, but it’s getting late. They should be here soon.”

As soon as he said it, Judas spotted Simon and Thomas moving toward them through the crowd. Simon’s face changed at the sight of Jesus and he stood beside Mary, the awe on his face matching hers.

Jesus spoke until the sun was low in the sky but the crowd didn’t dwindle; it only continued to grow. The Roman presence grew as well and as the sun continued to sink, Judas felt his heart sink with it. He grew more agitated as each minute passed. The scene looked like the start of every one of his dreams of late. The large Jewish crowd, the Roman soldiers, and Jesus there at the center of it all. 

Jesus spoke as though oblivious to the changes in the court, but Judas wasn‘t oblivious. Judas saw the way that the soldiers stepped closer, waiting for the smallest incentive. 

Beside him, Simon shifted, but when Judas moved to step forward, Simon set a hand to his chest and said, “Wait. Wait.”

Finally Jesus paused in his rhetoric. He looked to the sky, squinted at the sun. It was time they departed. It wasn’t safe to spend the night in Jerusalem. They’d already stayed too late.

Jesus stood and the crowd around him groaned, displeased, but Jesus quieted them with his hands and his words, and finally he left the steps, started toward the place where Judas stood with the others. Judas heard his own sigh, felt relief in his chest, but he knew the feeling was premature. They weren‘t out of Jerusalem yet. 

As Jesus stepped down from the steps, the crowd closed in around him, talking and grabbing at him. Jesus smiled and touched their faces, tried to pass through, but found himself detained with each step that he took. Judas knocked Simon's hand from his chest then, ignored his protest and began to push toward Jesus, but it was a Roman soldier who reached him first, his hand coming to rest firmly on Jesus’ shoulder.

Judas froze, too terrified for a moment to move, and then too terrified not to as he rushed the rest of the distance to Jesus‘ side, set his hand on Jesus‘ other arm. A woman beside Jesus was pushed into the soldier by the crowd and the solder pushed her back, hard so that she almost stumbled.

“No,” Judas said, not even realizing he’d uttered the word aloud until Jesus’ head turned slightly toward him in silent response.

Jesus lifted his arm in the soldier’s grip so that he could set his hand on the Roman just as the Roman had his hand on Jesus.

The soldier looked hard at the woman who’d stumbled under his shove, then back to Jesus. Jesus watched him intently, his gaze passive, neutral. Absent, Judas thought, indifferent. But this wasn’t quite that. Jesus was tense under Judas's hand. Judas could feel it beneath his fingers, undermining his outward display. Surely the soldier must feel it too.

People pushed around them still from all sides, tried to get a closer look at what was happening, tried to get closer to Jesus if they could. The crowd knocked against the soldier’s back and he lurched forward for a moment before he caught his footing again. Judas thought that this was it, this was when the soldier would lash out. This would start the riot, the bloodshed. This was the moment.

The soldier let Jesus go. 

His hand slid off of Jesus’ shoulder and then he shrugged Jesus’ hand from where it held at his arm. Jesus let it fall away and took a step back into Judas. Judas tightened his grip, pulled at Jesus’ arm. Jesus resisted for a moment, stood there and stared still at the solder, but when Judas tugged at him again, Jesus moved, let Judas pull him back and followed as Judas began to push through the crowd. 

Having seen the encounter with the Roman, the immediate crowd no longer blocked Jesus’ path. As Judas and Jesus moved farther away from the steps the groups of people largely ignored them, having missed the exchange and Jesus’ afternoon sermon. By the time they reached the gate and exited the Temple’s courts, they were anonymous to most of the crowd, to the soldiers that passed them by.

They passed quickly through lines of booths and then ducked into a narrow alleyway. This time it was Judas who held out his hand, stopped Jesus and listened. Jesus stood behind him, leaned back against the wall when Judas pressed a hand to his chest and waited. It was imperative that they were not followed as they left Jerusalem. It has always been important, but Judas felt the necessity in his gut now, knew that something awful would befall them if they were not vigilant. 

The sun was setting fast in the narrow streets of Jerusalem. The shadows were long and the alley was dark around them. Judas listened, but he heard nothing except the noise of people preparing their dinner, settling into their sukkah for the fourth night. Judas looked to Jesus, thought about how different his life was before they met. Judas would be one of these people if it wasn’t for Jesus. He would be settling down to eat now, to pray. Instead he was here, pressed beside Jesus, huddled against a wall in one of Jerusalem’s alleys, praying that no one found them before they made it to safety.

Jesus reached up, set a hand on Judas's back. 

“I don’t think we were followed,” Jesus said, his voice low, nearly a whisper.

“Not yet,” Judas agreed. He moved away from the wall, immediately missed Jesus’ proximity, but pushed the thought aside just as quickly. He rubbed his arms as he looked at Jesus, still standing there, and then he turned and started to walk.

He was angry. He was angry that Jesus had ignored all of his warnings. He was angry that the events of the day had touched so closely at his dreams. No one was hurt, Jesus would tell him. No harm came to anyone. 

Not today, no. Today they were lucky.

**

They were far beyond the walls of Jerusalem before Jesus slowed his pace. They were headed to the Mount of Olives, to the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas knew this route though there were many. He had walked them all at Jesus‘ side. 

Judas had lost Mary when he’d rushed after Jesus, as he‘d pushed Jesus through the crowd, and it seemed strange now to walk alone with Jesus without her there. She’d become a fixture in his life this past week, strong and sure beside them.

She was safe, he told himself. She was with Peter and Simon and they would watch out for her, though in truth she didn’t need their protection. Mary seemed overwhelmed that morning by a city she was perhaps seeing for the first time, but left alone in it she would conquer it, make it her own. Mary would be fine.

Jesus’ pace continued to slow until he stopped walking entirely, turned back to stare at the walls of Jerusalem. Judas continued to walk slowly, but when Jesus didn’t fall back into step beside him, Judas stopped as well. He paced back toward Jesus, anxious to get where they were going. Eventually, Judas stopped at Jesus’ side, looked on Jerusalem as Jesus looked on it. The landscape that stretched outside of the city’s walls was dotted with the orange glow of the fires of those who did not wish to remain in the confines of Jerusalem. The walls of the city rose up behind them, a black silhouette on the horizon, enclosed and unwelcoming. 

“Jerusalem is the same as when we left it,” Judas noted, his tone bitter. To his surprise, Jesus laughed in response, a high bark that jarred Judas so that he started in the silence of the surrounding desert.

Judas turned to Jesus, but all that was left of the laugh was the slight trace of a smile on Jesus’ lips. Jesus couldn’t actually think it was funny. Jesus had been tense, had been trying not to let on, to show Judas that he was scared. It was just as it had been that night in Tiberias, as it had been when the pilgrims passed them at the side of the road the night before. The laugh had dispelled the tension, just a bit, and Jesus’ shoulders slumped slightly with the release.

Jesus turned his eyes away from Jerusalem and looked back at Judas. He reached up, touched Judas's jaw.

“I’m surrounded,” Jesus said. “And I’ve never felt so - “

Judas expected Jesus to say important, needed, loved. He expected Jesus to tell him lies, the same lies that he told to himself, to say that everything was well when Judas could see on Jesus‘ face that it wasn‘t true, that it had been getting worse for some time, that it was becoming worse still.

Judas braced himself, but Jesus didn‘t say anything, didn‘t continue at all, and after a moment, Judas let out the breath he‘d been holding. 

Judas thought he should let the statement go, let the end trail off into the night as Jesus seemed to intend, but he found himself locked on Jesus, his face passive again, sad. Judas found himself unable to look away, and after a moment he asked, “What is it? You‘ve never felt so - ” 

“Alone,” Jesus finished. The slight smile had returned, completely at odds with the word he’d said.

“What?” Judas asked, sure he’d misheard.

“I’ve never felt so alone.” One look at Jesus’ face told Judas that it was the truth. Judas wasn’t expecting it.

“You aren’t alone,” Judas said, immediately. He’d watched the way that Jesus had changed, the way that everything was changing, but Judas hadn’t guessed that Jesus could think - 

Jesus moved away from him and Judas reached out, his fingers catching in the fabric of the cloak at Jesus’ shoulder. Jesus would start walking now, would leave it at that. Judas didn’t want to leave it. His fingers pulled at Jesus’ cloak and Jesus came easily, followed Judas to the edge of the road, let Judas guide him until he was seated on the ground, Judas at his side.

Jesus looked up at the sky, eyes shining, wet for just a moment before he blinked it away and turned to stare out at the horizon, his face a mask once more.

“You aren’t alone,” Judas said again.

“They can’t hear me,” Jesus continued. His hand, palm up where it rested in his lap, clenched and relaxed as he said the words. “They don’t want to.”

“I didn’t mean them,” Judas countered. He reached for Jesus. He thought to take Jesus’ hand, set his own into Jesus’ open palm, but he pulled back at the last moment and set a reassuring hand on his knee instead. “I meant Mary. I mean me. You have us. You have Peter and James. We’re all with you.”

Jesus stared at Judas's hand where it touched him. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even seem to hear Judas. Instead he reached out and pressed his fingers to the back of Judas's hand before covering it with his own. Jesus’ hand was warm against his, his fingers curling around Judas's palm.

Judas felt himself quicken, knew that it was time, that Jesus would listen. Jesus wanted to talk to him.

“They’ll hear only the things they want to hear,” Judas said. “Regardless of the things that you actually say.”

Jesus nodded and Judas continued.

“I’m worried for you,” he said, heard the quaver in his voice and hated himself for it. There was so much he wanted to say. He wanted to tell Jesus that he knew that the things that were said weren’t true. The miracles. The Messiah. Jesus brought hope, that was all, and when that hope was gone - 

It was getting out of hand. Jesus could still back down. Judas would stand by him. He wanted to tell Jesus of the things he saw when he looked into the faces of the crowd, of the dreams that had him tossing through the night.

Jesus’ thumb rubbed circles over Judas's wrist. It felt too intimate somehow, and Judas shook his head.

“Before we left Tiberias, you said - “

“Are you?” Jesus asked then, cut in before Judas could finish. He looked up, his eyes impossibly large and so blue, and Judas felt his tongue dry and his heart clench around the words that he meant to say. He cleared his throat before he continued on to answer Jesus‘ question.

“Yes,” Judas said. “Of course, I’m worried. The crowds are getting too big, too vocal and far too loud. The things they’re saying - and the Romans - “

“No,” Jesus said. He turned Judas's hand, held it tight in his. “You said I wasn’t alone because I had you. Do I have you, Judas?”

Judas pulled his hand away, pressed it to Jesus‘ shoulder instead. “Yes,” he said, the response too forceful, a hiss on Judas's tongue. He started over, his words more careful now. “Yes, you have me. But you’re backing yourself into a corner. You must see that. There won’t be any escape if this goes too far.”

Jesus had turned away from him again, didn’t like Judas's words. Judas continued.

“Tell them the truth,” he insisted. “Dispel the rumors. The things that you teach are beautiful, Jesus, but you can’t let them believe that - “

“Judas,” Jesus sighed. 

“Please,” Judas said. “Just listen to what I’m saying to you.”

“Listen to what I’ve asked you,” Jesus countered. The rush of the retort paused Judas, confused him. Jesus reached for Judas's hand again, pulled it toward him and pressed it to his chest.

“Am I alone?” Jesus asked. “Am I alone or are you with me?”

“I’m with you,” Judas said again.

Jesus’ hand pressed Judas's palm to his chest, his fingers covered Judas's fingers.

“Are you here with me, Judas?” Jesus asked once more. His gaze was steady, patient yet searching.

And now Judas began to understand, to see what it was that Jesus was asking him. He felt the heat start in his chest. He felt it travel upward until his neck and his face burned with his answer, clear enough that he knew he’d never have to say the actual words aloud, not when Jesus could read it so clearly as it blazed across his cheeks.

He felt Jesus’ heart, the rhythm steady beneath the palm of his hand as his own thundered in his head, echoed in his ears. Judas remembered the feel of Mary’s mouth against his, the touch of her hands, the reality blending into his dreams, then back into reality again.

He pulled away from Jesus, pulled hard so that Jesus flinched in surprise. Judas didn’t stop moving though, he stood and took a step back onto the road. 

Judas couldn’t. His heart felt like it would burst from his chest. There had never been anyone else. No one else that could make Judas feel this. Mary, yes, but it was different. Mary infuriated him and she delighted him. She surprised him and soothed him. But Jesus - Jesus paralyzed him.

Jesus looked down at his empty hand, then up at Judas. 

“How did you know?” Judas asked. The question sounded like an accusation, but his voice caught so that it sounded like he was choking on the words. For a moment he wondered if Mary had said, if she’d sat down beside Jesus and told him everything, of the way that Judas turned to her, that it wasn’t her name on his lips, that it had never been his on hers. He imagined her telling Jesus the things that she had seen in Judas's heart and his chest burned, his stomach turned. “How did you know?”

Jesus’ eyes were wide as he regarded Judas, as he shook his head and said, “I know nothing.”

Judas laughed and turned away.

“Will you run from me?” Jesus asked behind him. “Is that your answer to my question?”

Jesus must be able to read it all over Judas, in every line of Judas's body, in the burning flush of his face. How could he not know? 

Judas turned back. Jesus was still staring at him, searching for his answer. Show me how to love him, Mary had said. Show us how it’s done.

But how was anyone to know? How was Judas to know when even Mary did not?

Judas's instinct was to run from this, to turn now, just as Jesus had guessed, to turn and leave. He’d return to the others, find Mary, wrap her in his arms. He’d leave and walk, keep going until he was far from here, far from Jesus and his followers, alone and himself again. It wouldn’t matter to him what Jesus did once Judas was gone. It wouldn’t matter that Jesus’ words in Tiberias, that his actions, kept Judas up nights. Judas could leave.

Judas might have left. If he’d been looking away from Jesus, he might have been able to follow through on the thought, to turn and leave all of this behind. But Jesus held him there. Even in the growing darkness, Judas saw hope in Jesus’ eyes as he waited for Judas's response, a softness that held Judas to his place on the road, propelled him forward but not back, not away.

Judas stepped toward Jesus, knelt before him at the edge of the road. Jesus smiled, unsure, and reached up to touch Judas's cheek.

“Can I kiss you?” Judas asked. 

Jesus‘ smile fell and his eyes grew wide again, surprised by Judas's question. For a moment, Judas worried that he had misunderstood, that Jesus might turn him away after all, and he thought to pull back before that could happen. But Jesus’ hand still touched his face, his fingers sliding into the hair behind Judas's ear.

“Can I kiss you?” Judas asked again, fast before he lost his resolve. “Jesus.”

Jesus leaded forward and pressed a kiss to Judas's forehead.

“You don’t have to ask,“ Jesus said then, his nose pressed into Judas's curls, so close that Judas couldn’t see his face, could only hear the words. 

Judas leaned in toward Jesus, leaned in as Jesus’ hand slid to the back of Judas's neck and held him close. Judas took a deep breath, the familiar smell of Jesus’ skin filling his nostrils. He took comfort in the proximity, and then he pushed aside his fears, just for this moment. He pushed aside the things that kept him up nights, Jesus’ increasing emotional absences. Jesus was present now. 

Judas turned his head and kissed Jesus’ cheek. He started close by Jesus’ ear and kissed the line of his jaw, once, twice before returning to place his fourth kiss to Jesus’ cheek once more. The short hairs of Jesus’ beard scratched at Judas's lips, reminded Judas with each kiss that this was real, this was Jesus that he kissed. It wasn’t a fantasy. He didn’t have to imagine it anymore.

Judas kissed Jesus’ temple, the line of his hair where it met his forehead. Jesus’ eyes were closed and Judas pulled back to study him, the shine of his eyelids and the dust smeared across his brow.

He lifted his hand and brushed the dust aside with his thumb. Jesus opened his eyes at the touch and Judas's breath caught at the warmth reflected there.

He remembered Mary’s words, heard her voice in his ear. “You would worship him,” she said as Judas leaned in again to press his lips to Jesus’ other cheek. His mouth was met once more by the sharpness of stubble, then the hardness of Jesus’ jaw. Nine, ten times Judas kissed Jesus’ face, and as he moved to place the eleventh kiss, Jesus turned, just slightly, and his kiss landed on Jesus’ mouth instead. Jesus’ lips were irresistibly soft after the roughness of his face and Judas lingered there, thrilled by the feel of them finally pressed to his own.

They kissed slowly, the movement of their mouths tentative and careful as they learned what the rhythm of it might be, as they discovered how the other moved within it. Jesus’ kiss was gentler than Mary’s had been, softer and less sure. Judas felt less sure here too, as though somehow he’d forgotten how to kiss in the days since he’d kissed Mary last. He was learning it all again now, felt like he was learning it for the first time.

His hand rested on Jesus’ chest and he felt the tension there, felt Jesus shudder beneath his hand. His fingers slid up Jesus’ neck to cup his face, to hold him close as they kissed. His thumb brushed the edge of Jesus’ mouth and he moved it closer, felt the place where their lips met. Jesus turned his head into it, kissed Judas’ thumb and his palm before Judas took control again, used his hand to guide Jesus back to his lips.

The kiss was more demanding now, their exploration of each other less tentative than it was at the start. Judas’s hand held Jesus close as he kissed open Jesus’ mouth, his tongue light on Jesus’ lips. 

Jesus sighed against him, his shaking breath filling Judas's heart until it felt as though it might burst, spill out into the sand between them. Judas had never known another man like this. He’d never known anyone who could make his heart swell in this way. 

The kiss ached. It pulled at his heart and his gut. It was too much, and Judas had to pause, to collect himself lest he be consumed by Jesus here on the side of the dark road. He pulled away, but Jesus made a soft noise of protest. Jesus followed, leaned in toward Judas. His lips were slightly parted still and his mouth was wet from the kiss. Judas felt desire flare within at the sight of him. Judas looked on Jesus and felt lust curl through him. It surprised him, scared him, and he turned away.

“I’m sorry,“ Judas said. “We should go. They’ll worry if we don’t arrive soon.”

Judas could hear Jesus breathing beside him, his breath heavy, matching Judas’s own. 

“They’re waiting for us,” Judas said when he turned back to find that Jesus still watched him.

Jesus nodded, looked away, wiped a hand across his mouth.

Judas stood and brushed the dust from his cloak, then held out his hand for Jesus. Jesus took it and let Judas pull him up until they stood beside each other in the road once more.

It was Judas who began walking first. He was several steps away before he heard Jesus start to follow him. 

They walked in silence. Judas wondered if it was what Jesus had expected. He wondered if the kiss had been what Jesus wanted when he asked Judas if they were together here. Jesus had wished to kiss him again when Judas pulled away. That much was clear. 

Judas’s mouth burned from the kiss, from the scratch of Jesus’ face against his skin. He reached up and touched his fingers to his lips.

He tried to imagine what might have happened if they’d been somewhere else, in that shed in the village by the stream perhaps. He tried to imagine them there, to imagine how it might have gone differently. They wouldn’t have needed to be elsewhere. They would have had time. Judas might have - 

Judas closed his eyes, imagined his mouth on Jesus’ bare chest. He closed his eyes and he saw it, but only for a moment. He saw it only for a moment before he remembered what had happened in Jerusalem that afternoon, before he saw his nightmares begin to play out before him. He tripped over a stone in the path and reached out to stop himself from falling. Jesus was there in time, pulling Judas back until Judas found his footing once more.

Jesus’ hand lingered on his arm, but Judas couldn’t concentrate on the warmth of the touch. He’d lost the moment now, could only think of what had happened before this, what would happen again tomorrow.

“We’re nearly there,” Jesus said, seemingly worried that Judas was growing weary of the walk. 

Judas stopped and reached for Jesus, turned Jesus toward him. Jesus looked back at him, confused.

“Let us leave Judea,” Judas pleaded. “We can travel to Perea, stay there for a time.” Judas knew that even going back to Galilee would be a better choice than this.

“Yes,” Jesus agreed. “We will stay in Jerusalem until the Feast is finished. Then we will go to Perea.”

Judas shook his head. “We should leave now. Tomorrow the crowd will grow larger,” he said. “And the day after that larger still.”

This was Tiberias all over again, it was Jerusalem the last time they’d come. It was Nazareth before Jesus was exiled the second time. Their exchange in the road had been a pleasant distraction, yes, and it had filled Judas’s lungs and his heart. But it only made it more important to Judas now that they leave. That they don’t tempt the Romans here, not again so soon after today.

Before him Jesus nodded to acknowledge Judas, but he did not respond. 

Nothing had changed.

**

By the time they arrived at the base of the Mount of Olives, Judas had made up his mind. The others were already there, had chosen a shorter route and had arrived long before them. The group had been staying here for days and had erected their booths for the Feast. It made the garden appear a miniature city before Jesus and Judas. As they approached, the rest of the twelve milled about, concerned. It shouldn’t have taken Jesus that long to travel to Gethsemane from Jerusalem. They‘d lingered too long at the edge of the road. As soon as their approach was spotted Peter rushed to meet them.

“We thought something had happened,” Peter said. “We thought perhaps you were detained.”

It was unusual to see Peter frightened, to see him filling Judas’s role amongst the group in Judas’s absence.

“I was detained,” Jesus smiled. “But not in the way that you feared.”

Peter’s face told Judas that Peter didn’t understand this response, but he nodded anyway, appeased, and walked with them back toward the others.

Jesus was enfolded immediately. He smiled on his followers, hugged them, kissed foreheads and held their hands. As Judas watched the reunion, Mary came to stand with him. She reached out, her small hand coming to rest on Judas’s back. 

“Something has happened,” Mary said, seeing it right away. 

“Yes,” Judas agreed.

She looked to him, waited for him to explain further, but was interrupted by Jesus as he approached to touch Mary’s shoulder in greeting, to kiss her hair. She let her eyes fall shut with the kiss and Judas closed his eyes as well. He saw it even without watching. He knew that it was beautiful. He knew how it felt to kiss her and to be kissed by him.

“Judas was worried about you,” Jesus said. 

Judas opened his eyes to find them both watching him now.

“Was he?” Mary asked, surprised. Judas shook his head. He hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t mentioned Mary at all on the walk to Gethsemane. He’s thought of her, of course, but - 

“Were you worried?” Mary asked, turning back to Jesus, her eyebrows raised.

Jesus shook his head. “I knew that you would be fine,” he smiled.

“I knew that you would be fine too,” Judas said quickly, lest Mary believe Jesus‘ jest. 

Mary laughed at Judas‘s defense, her touch a reassurance on his arm. 

Jesus was still smiling when he held out his hand for Judas to take. Judas‘ palm slid across Jesus‘ hand as Jesus‘ fingers curled around it to hold him. 

“Walk with me,” was his request.

Judas nodded. Mary’s hand fell from his arm as Judas let Jesus pull him away. They walked away from the others, past the twisting gnarled limbs of the olive trees

“You have something to tell me,” Jesus said, once they were far from the others, alone in the trees.

Judas shook his head, not ready yet, though it was true that Judas must tell Jesus of the decision that he’d made. He would have liked this night, this one night, but Jesus waited and eventually Judas gave in. He leaned in and kissed Jesus’ cheek. Jesus’ hands came up to rest on Judas’ shoulders. The brush of Jesus’ cheek against his mouth felt familiar, intimate and welcome, and Judas lingered there for a moment before he pulled away. Jesus’ hands remained on his shoulders, keeping him close when he would have turned. 

“There are times when I wonder if your detractors in the courts today are right,“ Judas admitted. “I wonder if they’re right and you are crazed. I wonder if Simon is right and you antagonize the Romans on purpose. I wonder if you know that eventually they will kill you and that‘s why you speak the way that you do, the way that you did in Tiberias. I lie awake because I dream of slaughter, yours and ours. I see you turning in your sleep and I wonder if your dreams are similar to mine.” 

Judas hadn’t planned to say these things, was surprised to find himself saying them aloud now. Jesus listened, his eyes soft as they watched Judas. He didn‘t respond. He didn’t confirm nor deny Judas’s claims. It only reinforced Judas’s decision. He continued.

“I don’t believe that you are what they say you are,” Judas said. “I don’t believe that you’re the Messiah.”

“I know,” Jesus said. That was it. Jesus knew that Judas didn’t believe. Not the way that Peter did. Not the way that Mary might. Jesus knew that perhaps Judas never would.

“Yet I love you,“ Judas said. “I’m with you.“ He paused, reached up to touch Jesus, watched his fingers curve around Jesus’ forearm. He looked on Jesus’ face again as he went on. “I want you to know that I’m with you in this.”

Jesus smiled but it looked forced. Jesus knew there was more to come. His fingers pressed into Judas’s shoulders, held him tight. 

“I’m with you,” Judas said a third time. “But I will not ask to continue this. I won’t ask to kiss you again. Not now.”

Jesus did not protest. He didn’t ask Judas for his reasons, for Judas had already stated them. Asking again would demand answers from Jesus in return, answers that Jesus did not seem ready to give and that Judas knew that he did not want to hear. Jesus didn’t fight Judas‘s words. His eyes gave nothing away as he nodded, as his fingers twisted in the fabric of Judas’ cloak. He pulled Judas back in toward him, pulled until Judas was close enough to embrace. Judas pressed his mouth to Jesus’ shoulder. 

When they parted again, Jesus released Judas entirely and Judas took a step back. They began to walk back toward the others. They were nearly there when Jesus spoke again.

“You spend all of your time worrying about what tomorrow will bring,” Jesus said, an echo of his words from nights before. “I fear that you will miss what is happening before you now.”

“I see what is happening,” Judas said. “I wish it could happen. But I fear that this isn’t the time for it.”

Jesus shrugged. “Is it ever the time?” he asked. 

Judas did not know the answer.

**

It was nearly morning when Mary came to sit beside him, her shoulder pressed close to his.

“Have you slept?” she asked.

“A bit,” Judas admitted, though it couldn’t have been for more than an hour. He’d woken suddenly, sure that something had roused him, a noise or movement, but there was nothing, just the sukkah over his head and Peter’s soft snoring beside him. Jesus slept on the other side of Peter, but Judas couldn’t hear him over the snores. He propped himself up on his arm and found that Jesus’ place was empty. 

“Jesus,“ Judas whispered and received no response. He stood, stepped over Peter and out into the night where he found Jesus asleep by the glowing remains of the fire. 

Judas sat beside Jesus as he slept for much of the night. He stared up at the stars, at the bright sliver of the moon. He watched the rise and fall of Jesus’ chest, reached out to feel the heat of Jesus’ forehead on his palm. Jesus stirred beneath Judas’s hand. Not wanting to wake Jesus, Judas stood, walked through the garden to its edge. There he sat again and stared out across the darkness. This was where Mary found him, just as the desert began to become visible under the first touches of morning light.

“You’ve told him,” Mary guessed.

“Yes,” Judas agreed. “I told him. I kissed him.“ Mary’s fingers moved to her own lips at the admission, her fingertips touching them lightly as Judas continued. “And then I told him that it would not happen again.”

Mary started, surprised. “He turned you away?”

“No,” Judas said.

“Then why?”

“I could lose myself in him,” Judas admitted. 

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Mary asked.

If Judas got too close, he’d burn. He’d ignite and he wouldn’t be able to stop it. He wouldn’t be able to stop any of it.

“What would happen to us?” Judas asked. “What will happen to us?” 

Mary thought about this for a long time. She weaved her arm through Judas’s, set her cheek on his shoulder. Judas turned into her, pressed his mouth into her hair. She reached for him, pulled him down and covered his lips with hers in a kiss. He wondered for a moment if he kissed her now because he had kissed Jesus, if it was still Jesus’ mouth she wished to feel against her own. Judas understood her so well, understood all of himself that he saw in her. When she pulled away from him, her eyes were steady on his, focused on him, and Judas let her lean in and kiss him again, certain that this second kiss was entirely for him, even if the first hadn’t been. 

Mary leaned her head on his shoulder once more.

“I don’t know what I’m meant to do,” Judas said, staring out at the horizon. 

Mary said nothing, let Judas continue.

“It seemed the right thing, but I sat there at his side while he slept and I wasn’t sure. I sit here with you now and I’m not sure. He asked me if he was alone and I told him that he wasn’t and then I left him there to sleep with no one at his side.”

“You’re at his side, Judas,” Mary said. “He knows that. No one would ever doubt it.”

“I don’t know what I’m meant to do,” Judas repeated. “I don’t know how -” He trailed off. It was light enough now to see the outline of the city. Once, some time ago, he’d stood with Jesus on the top of this mount and watched as Jesus wept at the sight of it. 

“He’ll return to Jerusalem,” Mary guessed. She was looking at the city too.

“Yes,” Judas said. “He intends to return to the courts each day until the end of the Feast. If the people haven’t rioted, if Rome hasn’t lashed out, then he’s promised that we will go to Perea for a time.”

He felt Mary flinch at the bitterness laced into Judas’s words. He felt her nod her understanding. She shifted then, came to sit before him. She blocked his view of the city, forcing him to see only her instead. She knew that it troubled him. He reached for her and took her hands in his. 

“If you were in my place,” Judas started. “Would you have done differently?”

“I don’t know,” Mary admitted. She brought their hands to her mouth and kissed his knuckles. “I don’t know what I would do.”

“I could lose myself in him,” Judas said again. He looked on her and then he said, “I think I could lose myself in you.”

Mary pause don this for a moment and then she leaned forward, pressed three kisses to his mouth before she sat back, his hands still held tightly in hers. Her eyes were bright as she regarded him, as though she’d just discovered all of the answers. She leaned in toward him again, her voice hushed as she spoke.

“And what if Jesus lost himself in you? What would happen then?”

“I don’t know,” Judas said, confused. Judas wasn’t sure that Jesus had the room in his heart. It was too full. Sometimes Judas thought that Jesus had lost himself already.

“What would happen?” Mary asked again.

“What does it matter?” Judas countered. He pulled his hands from hers, reached out to grip her shoulders, afraid suddenly that she’d never understood him at all. “If this keeps up - “

“So we’ll protect him,” Mary cut in. Her hands were on his neck, then his jaw, holding him close as she spoke, her words a rush of excitement. “You and I, Judas. Don’t you see? _That‘s_ what you‘re meant to do. That‘s why you stay at his side. It‘s what you‘ve always done, isn‘t it? Since I‘ve met you, that is all that you‘ve done.”

“How?” Judas asked. 

Mary shook her head, her eyes still bright as they continued.

“John and Peter and Thomas will do exactly what Jesus asks of them. They always have. And so we’ll have to be the ones. You don’t follow blindly as the others do. You see the things that they are unwilling to see, the things that even Jesus ignores. We will do what needs to be done. We’ll make sure that he keeps himself safe when it seems he no longer cares to. We’ll make sure that he’s kept safe -“

“That we’re all kept safe,“ Judas added.

“Yes,“ Mary agreed. “Together we’ll make sure. And then maybe - “

Judas shook his head, but her excitement was contagious. He looked at her and it no longer seemed so hopeless, the ending no longer seemed inevitable. She was right. It was what he’d been trying to do all along. With her on his side, with two of them, perhaps it would no longer feel like quite so impossible a task.

“Maybe what?” Judas asked, eager now to hear the conclusion to Mary’s plan.

She smiled at him, and for a moment Judas thought she might be crying, but he brushed his thumb across her cheek and it came away dry.

“Maybe what?” he asked again.

“Maybe someday Jesus will choose to go to Perea before the end of a feast,” Mary finished. 

Judas took in her words. He watched over her shoulder as the sun began to rise over the horizon. When he looked to her again she regarded him still. Waiting.

This wasn‘t the time for it, Judas had told Jesus the night before. It wasn‘t the time for them. 

“Is it ever?” Jesus had returned. 

Judas had not known the answer then and he still didn‘t know it now, but when he looked on Mary, he saw that she believed that time would come. She believed that they would get there.

“Yes,” Judas said. “Together we‘ll make sure.”


End file.
